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After a full year away from the Daring Bakers, I am back for this month's 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.
OK...so...part of the appeal of the Daring Bakers, to me, is the fact that we have to adhere to directions. This is something I do not do well, especially when it comes to food. I have a hard time resisting the urge to change this or that ingredient, use a different technique, or scrap the directions altogether. This leads to some awful results at times, but has also led to some awesome new creations! So, I joined DB as an exercise in discipline, and as a way to learn some new baking techniques.
When I saw this month's challenge, I thought I was getting off easy. We were given the option to bake both types of cookies or choose just one. Since I'm not a big fan of marshmallows and I'd have to either order vegan marshmallows online or try to make them myself, I passed in the marshmallow cookies. I decided to give the Milan Cookies a try, and thought, "how hard could this be?".
As a vegan baker, DB rules allow for some variation. So I based my recipe off of Isa's* . (I haven't said it in awhile...we are so lucky to have Isa making the world safe for vegans!) All in all, it turned out a good cookie...a BIG cookie, not the dainty Pepperidge Farm variety, but that was my own fault. These were Milanos on Steroids!
The recipe itself was straight-forward. If I make them again I will try to make the sandwich cookies thinner and more crisp. I will also not bake them with a screaming baby on my back and two toddler apprentices...but who am I kidding??
So thank you, Nicole, for a good challenge this month! I look forward to see what DB have in store for me in August!
*I made one variation from Isa's recipe, I used hemp milk instead of rice and arrowroot powder instead of cornstarch.
