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.

I’ve been up to my head in thesis work for the past month so for a while it seemed I might miss this challenge. But the Friday before the reveal date my brain broke and I really needed to stop thinking about phenomenology… so I thought about cookies.

I started with the Milan cookies. Since we are pas de deux, I made one third of the recipe. We still ended up with about 30 sandwich cookies, but since Mr. Rabbit took a real shine to these little guys they didn’t last too long.

The batter comes together very easily — no tricks. I did buy a $4.00 piping bag from our local grocery and I would recommend the investment. Piping the cookies let me get them even shapes and sizes and no doubt made for a much speedier process than trying to drop the cookies onto the parchment. Also, piping is fun.

My cookies were quite small and thin (and our oven in New England is super-hot) so my biscuits came out a little earlier than the recommended ten minutes. I was surprised at their thin-ness and crispy-ness (some were almost cracker-like), but they softened later with the icing.

Making the chocolate filling was also very easy. I used a bittersweet chocolate which became extra-gorgeously fragrant with the orange zest. Putting together the sandwiches was a tiny bit messy, but sanctioned messiness is one of the pleasures of baking.

And how did they taste? Lovely (lovely, lovely). The cookies had a bright lemon flavour and the filling was rich without being too much. My biscuits were very petite and they had a pretty and delicate look. And they aged handsomely, taking on the divine cake-y texture I was originally anticipating.

A totally user-friendly recipe for fledgling bakers like me, and a elegant product. I feel like I ought to have served them with tea and proper china… but instead they got apricot wheat beer. Close enough.

Milan CookiesRecipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network websitePrep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 0 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 0 min
Serves: about 3 dozen cookies* I made 1/3 of the recipe and ended up with about 30 small sandwich cookies    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.
 

I was so delighted by the Milanular success that I decided to bake a 1/3 batch of mallows too. Turns out that the modern marshmallow was invented in New England so it was very a propos to be making them here in New Hampshire. The candy was originally made from indigenous marsh-mallow plants but later recipes substituted gelatin (although food historians say that the Egyptians also had a mallow candy way before the pilgrims). OK, so much for the food history lesson.

 I was also excited by the mallows because we-Canadians grew up with a marshmallow cookie called Viva Puffs:

(stupid name… I have no idea??). They were a childhood favourite and the idea of replicating them at home was really fun.

The cookie base was a snap, although we were initially surprised by its blandness. It presented likes shortbread, but lacks the sweetness. No matter, since the marshmallow is pure sweet. I don’t have a candy thermometer, so I used the water drop test method to discern when my sugar was at the soft-ball stage. On our stove, it only took a few minutes to get there and although I had doubts whether I’d actually be able to tell when I was at soft-ball, it was immediately apparent. For reference, the traditional red and white Better Homes and Gardens cookbook has a great illustrated primer on candy, which can also be found at: http://www.bhg.com/recipes/desserts/candy/cooking-and-testing-candy-mixtures/ 

Mr. Rabbit put some raspberry jam on the cookie bases and I used my new piping bag to pipe the marshmallow onto the cookies. I think I had too much gelatin in our mallows because the mixture was quite thick from the very beginning. They became increasingly difficult to work with as the mixture hardened so I had to pipe fast. The mallows are supposed to rest and set before being dipped chocolate, but the caulking-like texture of my mallows meant that they set almost-immediately. 

I still let the mallows set overnight before coating them. I made two batches of chocolate — on bittersweet and the other milk. Dipping the mallows meant more mess. It was hard to get an even coat, especially since my mallows were kind of blorpy to begin with. To get everything coated required quite a thick layer of delicious, which meant that drying time was considerable. Damp and rainy is the norm for us this summer, so for want of a cool, dry place to let the mallows sleep we put them in the wine refrigerator. This worked rather brilliantly and they were cool and crispy within an hour - recommended!

Finally — my mallows were aesthetically challenged, bump and homely. They were definitely reminiscent of the old Viva Puff, but with a distinctively home-made taste — the kind of homemade taste that gives you pause when you’re used to eating mass produced stuff. They were super-sweet (in part because my chocolate coating was quite substantial) and more like candy than cookie. They were kinda punching their weight with a truffle — rich, indeed. I was happy with the experiment, but after having tasted one cookie I kind of dreaded facing the other two dozen in the basement and I tried to brainstorm various neighbours and acquaintances who might take this trouble off our hands.

Others have mentioned that the yield in this recipe is questionable. I used small (vitamin) jar lid to cut my cookies, so while the cookies were perhaps on the smaller side, my 1/3 recipe still yielded close to 40 mallows — egad!

I would definitely make the milans again and will probably lobby to have them added to our Christmas baking repertoire (are you listening, M?). The mallows were a bit de trop, but I loved the opportunity to make marshmallows, and in the name of science they were definitely the more daring (and daunting) of the twin challenges.

Thanks to Nicole for such a fun challenge… and for getting me out of my thesis funk. How rewarding to actually accomplish something tangible, beautiful and delicious. 

Mallows (Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies)
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network websitePrep Time: 10 minInactive Prep Time: 5 min
Cook Time: 10 min
Serves: about 2 dozen cookies* I made 1/3 of the recipe and ended up with about 24 mallows (and I discarded another 8-10 mallow/biscuits because we ran out of chocolate and there was already hella calories on those trays) 

• 3 cups (375grams/13.23oz) all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (112.5grams/3.97oz) white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter
• 3 eggs, whisked together
      

• Homemade marshmallows, recipe follows
• Chocolate glaze, recipe follows1. In a mixer with the paddle attachment, blend the dry ingredients.
 2. On low speed, add the butter and mix until sandy.
3. Add the eggs and mix until combine.
 4. Form the dough into a disk, wrap with clingfilm or parchment and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 3 days. 5. When ready to bake, grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper or a silicon mat.
6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
7. Roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness, on a lightly floured surface. Use a 1 to 1 1/2 inches cookie cutter to cut out small rounds of dough.
* and I would make the cookie bases “small rounds” since what might look like a small foundation turns into a big treat once the mallow and chocolate are added 8. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.*Note that in homage to Viva Puffs, we spread a bit of raspberry jam onto the biscuits before piping the marshmallow.
9. Pipe a “kiss” of marshmallow onto each cookie. Let set at room temperature for 2 hours.
   10. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or silicon mat.
11. One at a time, gently drop the marshmallow-topped cookies into the hot chocolate glaze.
12. Lift out with a fork and let excess chocolate drip back into the bowl.


13. Place on the prepared pan and let set at room temperature until the coating is firm, about 1 to 2 hours.

Note: if you don’t want to make your own marshmallows, you can cut a large marshmallow in half and place on the cookie base. Heat in a preheated 350-degree oven to slump the marshmallow slightly, it will expand and brown a little. Let cool, then proceed with the chocolate dipping. 

Marshmallows1. In a saucepan, combine the water, corn syrup, and sugar, bring to a boil until “soft-ball” stage, or 235 degrees on a candy thermometer.
* don’t panic if you don’t have a thermometer, its really easy to test the confection using BHG link2. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let dissolve.
3. Remove the syrup from the heat, add the gelatin, and mix.
4. Whip the whites until soft peaks form and pour the syrup into the whites.
5. Add the vanilla and continue whipping until stiff.
* Sorry there are no pics of the first stages of candy building, because it’s pretty interesting. But it also happened quite fast and so we lost track of documenting the process6. Transfer to a pastry bag.*but do invest in a pastry bag — without this bit of equipment the mess could border on catastrophic

Chocolate glaze:


• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 2 ounces cocoa butter or vegetable oil       

1. Melt the 2 ingredients together in the top of a double boiler or a bowl set over barely simmering water. 

Posted on July 27th, 2009 by rabbit
Filed under: Uncategorized