Milanos at Home - July Daring Bakers Challenge

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.


Thankfully this month we DBers can be counted as a participant by completing either the Milans challenge or the Chocolate Covered Mashallow Cookies challenge, of course both were fair game too. July very unexpectedly picked in pace for me in addition to being away from L&S to visit home, mom, friends, and family for five days in PA. Regardless, I'm back and ready to release all the dishes I've been stockpiling since my last appearance. Also, look for my iPhone Photo Diary article at Eat, Live, Travel, Write as a guest blogger this August 2nd, 2009 featuring the lesser-known, yet none-the-lesser delicious foods of the Philadelphia area (Thanks Mardi!). I'm excited to showoff my childhood foods in the upcoming article, but without further ado-THE MILANs!

Milan Cookies
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website. I didn't change nearly anything at all, but truly enjoyed executing this recipe for an amazing homemade cookie version of a brand favorite.

Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 0 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 0 min
Serves: about 3 dozen cookies

• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups (312.5 grams/ 11.02 oz) powdered sugar
• 7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon extract
• 1 1/2 cups (187.5grams/ 6.61 oz) all purpose flour

Cookie filling:

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested (omitted this, but added peppermint extract later for about 1/2 the batch).

1. In a mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and the sugar.
2. Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.

3. Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.

4. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread.

5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.

6. While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream.
7. Pour hot cream over chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well.
8. Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).

9. Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.

10. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.