Edit: Ugh! I set this to automatically post while I was in Europe and it didn’t. Wordpress must hate me.

It’s the end of the month and what does that mean for baker blog world!? The Daring Bakers challenge is due of course and for once I remembered to get it done on time! Since I lost track of time and missed the last two challenges I MADE SURE I had this one done early! Oh and it doesn’t stop there! Not only did I finish this challenge within the first week of July, but I also made it THREE times! I would have made these bad boys a fourth if I hadn’t run out of gelatin because the recipe is just that amazing. My family went through these so fast that they would be completely gone by day two. It was insane.

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.

Oh and I have decided that I’m going to try and start this new thing. You see, my favorite types of food blogs are the ones that try to capture as many steps as possible. I’m a very visual person so I love being able to see how everything is supposed to look as you go along. As fantastic as a final picture looks, I really love being able to tell if my mix looks correct and to see what kind of techniques others use so I want to try and do this as well. Beware, this blog is about to get rather picture heavy!

Begin by blending all of the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, then add the butter.

At a low speed, mix until it has a sandy look!

Add the eggs and mix until well combined!

Mold the dough into a disk-like shape (it really doesn’t matter), wrap in clingform, and chill for 1 hour up to 3 days.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease or line a cookie sheet. Lightly flour your surface and roll out the dough to around a 1/8th inch thickness.

Find a cookie cutter that’s about 1 to 1-21/2 inches and cut away! I actually found that I liked the cookies more when I used a 1 inch cookie cutter. They felt really big when I used a larger one, but whatever works for you!

Place you’re lovely little dough pieces on your prepared sheet and bake for ten minutes (or until golden brown).

Remove from oven and allow to cool to room temperature. On my second and third batch I spread a layer of peanut butter on each cookie. It made them taste even better!

Anyway, begin to prepare your marshmallow! I’d like to note that I found THIS video very helpful when making marshmallows if it’s your first time.

Now, in a saucepan combine water, corn syrup, and sugar. Allow to boil to the soft ball stage or until it’s around 235 degrees.

Dissolve gelatin in cold water. Remove your syrup from the heat and mix in the gelatin.

Whip the egg whites into soft peaks form! This should take a couple minutes.

Pour the syrup mixture into the egg whites and add vanilla extract.

Continue whipping until stiff and when it gets that fantastic shine. It’ll be slightly runny, but not too runny. It should be able to hold some sort of shape without turning back into a blob. Transfer to a piping bag.

Pipe a kiss on top of each cookie.

If you want a more uniform look there was another method suggested by Audax Artifex, which I tried on my second batch.

You can fill a tray with flour, icing sugar, or even cornstarch and loosely stamp your marshmallow shape into it. Then fill the holes with marshmallow and allow to sit for up to 2 hours or until stiff enough to move.

I found this method helpful to get a perfect dome shape, but I sort of sucked at getting the bottom flat so my second batch was still kind of funky. On my third try I used an open star piping tip and piped the marshmallows in a swirl.

Create your chocolate glaze. Line a cookie sheet with parchment and begin to dip your marshmallow cookies into the glaze one at a time. Use a fork to scoop them out and to allow any excess chocolate to fall off. The marshmallow shouldn’t melt. I did find that when I accidentally burned the chocolate the marshmallows melted almost instantly, but when done correctly they were fine.

Let set until the coating is firm (about 1-2 hours). I put mine in the fridge overnight because I happened to finish mine at around midnight each time. It was also insanely humid where I live so there was no way the chocolate would ever fully set at room temperature.

All done and boy were they delicious! I swear to you, that layer of peanut butter did wonders. Somehow marshmallow, cinnamon cookie, peanut butter, and chocolate all go so well together. I would never have known! I really want to try other combinations now!

Here’s the inside of the first batch without that fantastic peanut butter layer. I also made the mistake of making my cookies too thick. Woops! Still very delicious though.

In all, this challenge was fantastic. It’s not too hard, but surprisingly incredibly delicious and addictive. Your family won’t be able to keep their hands off these little cookies! Oh and don’t forget about the Milan cookies too! I never got a chance to make them, but from everyone elses pictures they looked amaazzzinnggg. Mmm. God I love cookies.

Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies

• 3 cups (375 grams/13.23 oz) all purpose flour
• 1/2 cups (112.5 grams/3.97 oz) granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 12 Tablespoons (170 grams/6 oz) unsalted butter
• 3 eggs, whisked together
• Homemade marshmallows (recipe follows)
• Chocolate glaze (recipe follows)

1. 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.
8. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.
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.

Homemade Marshmallow

• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup (168.76 grams/5.95oz) sugar
• 1 tablespoon powdered gelatin
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 2 egg whites , room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. 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.
2. 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.
6. Transfer to a pastry bag.

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.

Milan 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, recipe follows

Cookie filling:

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested

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.

Happy late Fourth of July! I don’t particularly enjoy the food that goes along with this holiday, being vegetarian and all, but I definitely wasn’t going to let a holiday pass without using it as an excuse to bake! My dad requested the cinnamon shortbread cookies so I had to make some. I had originally planned on a delicious white chocolate blueberry tart, but I couldn’t find our tart pan and wasn’t about to waste money on another so the cookies were the only thing I made.

The one that reads, “Hola Amigo” was done by my sister around the time when I had grown extremely tired of decorating and my sister had wanted to have some fun with icing. I always forget that decorating is only fun at the very beginning when everything is new and the creative juices are flowing and then it all becomes repetitive, dull, and time consuming. Ha! I make it sound so awful, but it’s really not that bad. I swear!

Just out of the oven! I let my sister cut these ones because I was too busy decorating.

Starting to pipe on an outline. I really need to improve on this because I tend to have wobbly lines and my end points are never very clean. That is why you’ll see white points at the end of a lot of lines. I guess it’s fine considering this was only my second time decorating cookies.

My messy work station. I used Martha Stewart’s method of putting the thinned out icing in squeeze bottles. It was substantially easier than the last time and there wasn’t any mess from gravity causing the thin icing to ooze out of the frosting tips.

The end! There were a ton of cookies in the end even though a lot were eaten before and during decorating.

Well, macaroons called for four egg whites and I couldn’t possibly let the yolks go to waste! I searched far and wide for a recipe that called for egg yolks in hopes of finding some deliciously sinful dessert that required four yolks or at least two. Considering I didn’t want the yolks to sit out forever and become infested with salmonella, I quickly gave up searching for recipes on google and just settled on using Recipezaar’s lovely filter.

I don’t know what brilliant person decided that Recipezaar needed a filter, but it was an incredibly genius idea. I tend to go to that site because their filter has so many options that it makes it so easy to find what you’re looking for. All I had to do was search by ingredient (egg yolks) and category (dessert) and VOILA! I found a recipe that I liked. Now this recipe didn’t actually even use as many egg yolks as I liked, but HEY, the picture looked good and all the reviews made me want to try it even more so I caved on this recipe.

Cinnamon Shortbread Cookies

(Makes about 3 dozen cookies.)

• 1 cup flour
• 1-1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• A pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons sugar (optional)

1. In a medium bowl, mix flour, cinnamon, and salt until combined, then set aside.
2. In an electric mixer, blend butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add egg yolk and blend until well combined.
4. Add dry ingredients and mix until just blended.
5. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour or overnight. (Dough can also be frozen up to a month).
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease baking sheets.
7. Roll out dough, half at a time, to about 1/8 inch thick
8. Cut with cookie cutter and place cookies two inches apart on baking sheets.
9. Sprinkle with sugar. (optional)
10. Bake 7-8 minutes or until firm and just beginning to darken at edges.

You can clearly see that I am not extremely amazing at icing cookies. In fact, this was technically my first time if you ignore all the times I cheated and used the prepackaged frosting in those little piping pouches that you get at the grocery store when helping to decorate sugar cookies (I never did try to decorate them very well at least).

Anyways, this recipe comes from Martha Stewart and she even has a video to watch so you can see how it’s all done! Check it all out here!

Royal Icing

• 1 box (1 lb) powdered sugar
• 5 tablespoons meringue powder OR 2 large egg whites
• 1 teaspoon extract (I used lemon)

1. In an electric mixer, combine sugar and meringue powder/egg whites.
2. Meringue powder only: Mix on low speed, add a scant 1/2 cup water.
3. Mix until icing holds a ribbonlike trail on the surface of the mixture for 5 seconds when you raise the paddle.
4. For a thinner consistency, usually used for flooding, add more water. A thicker consistency is generally used for outlining and adding details.

Now, I am by no means an expert at icing cookies, but if you’re too lazy to watch Martha Stewart’s video on it, then maybe you’ll at least read what I did.

Using a #2 or #3 decorating tip, fill a piping bag with icing (the thicker version before adding more water). Make sure that it isn’t so thick that it’s too difficult to pipe because that would be silly. Carefully make an outline around your cookie using the thicker icing. Let sit for about 5 minutes in order to harden.

Take leftover royal icing and add more water in order to thin it out. Make it about the same consistency as a thick milkshake. You don’t want it too watery. Fill another piping bag with thin icing and fill the cookies. You don’t have to fill it up all the way because you can just add some in the center and then spread it out using a toothpick. Let cookies sit out for a while or refrigerate in order for the icing to harden. THAT’S ALL.