cookies and cupcakes

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.

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So, I'm at home. And so is my brother. This is the brother who said to me the other day "I'm so glad you love to bake!" And when I asked him why, he replied "because I LOVE to eat!!"

So when time came for this month's baking challenge, I asked him what he wanted, marshmallow cookies or milano cookies. He voted for the marshmallow first. (Then he realized that this would take a while, since the cookies had to bake, the marshmallow had to set, and the glaze had to set. He was mildly annoyed, being one for instant gratification. But he got all the cookies he could eat and then some, so y'know, sometimes patience is its own reward.)

Apparently, homemade marshmallows are little more than an Italian meringue with some gelatin in them. Who knew?

Anyway, these cookies are a not-so-sweet cookie topped with a dollop (that's such a nice word, "dollop", hehe) of marshmallow, dipped in a chocolate glaze. They were pretty good. Real marshmallows stay sticky though, who knew?

Pre-dipping:

a tray of extra marshmallow:

Dipped cookies:

I really wanted some white chocolate or something to drizzle over these, but alas, we had nothing I could think of to use at home. Que sera, they were good anyway.

So, at home, I'm dealing with my mother's oven, which is broken (the oven works fine, it's the door that requires two people to shut it after you open it), so I made these cookies in the toaster oven. It's a nice toaster oven, and fairly large as toaster ovens go, but it's still just a toaster oven (I have to be careful, I might hurt the toaster oven's feelings). And so I only baked about a third of the cookie dough for the first round. Then I got lazy, and made squares instead of circles (easier to cut) and made s'mores. I just cut up the tray of leftover marshmallow and sandwiched them between cookies and orange chocolate ganache (leftover from the milano cookies). They were pretty good, except the cookie part was too thick. I'll have to go thinner next time.

s'mores:

I did eventually make the Milano cookies as well. I love Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. And now I know how to make them. This time I had my brother help me wrestle with the oven, so the cookie baking went much faster, but since the oven door doesn't open well and the glass window needs serious cleaning, I ended up burning a lot of these, how sad. However, they were delicious and tasted pretty similar to the pepperidge farm cookies. My sister was home last week and tried some and was like "huh. this actually tastes like a milano cookie. good job." Actually, I got the same response from everyone in my family. Let's be fair, they don't actually know what I mean when I say "I like to bake" because I got really into baking in grad school. And I don't bake at home as much, mainly because the oven's broken.

A tray of milano cookies:

My brother decided that this would be a good arrangement for the cookies. Hardy-har-har.

And then, I had 8 egg yolks left over (plus a good deal of orange chocolate ganache). So what did I do? I made sponge cake. Or more accurately, sponge cupcakes.

vanilla sponge cake with an orange chocolate ganache topping.

Even my dad likes the cupcakes. And my dad isn't a big sweets fan.

fin.