Mallows and Milans

This month's Daring Bakers' hostess Nicole at Sweet Tooth chose chocolate covered marshmallow cookies (aka mallows) and milan cookies from the Food Network website. Both are from pastry chef Gale Gand and are homemade versions of Nabisco's Mallomars and Pepperidge Farm's Milanos. I've never tried Mallomars and didn’t even know about their existence until Harry (played by Billy Crystal) declared them the greatest cookies of all time in "When Harry Met Sally". Milanos were a favorite snack while I was in college. Back then there were only two varieties - original and mint. Orange, raspberry and others came along much later.

I really enjoyed the mallows. The cookie dough was very straightforward and easy. My only problem was the stated yield in the recipe was completely wrong. I rolled my dough 1/8-inch thick as stated and I was on my way to getting 12 dozen 1-inch diameter cookies. Luckily I only cut out about 50 cookies and saved the rest of the dough for the future.


I've never made marshmallows from scratch and was excited to try it. It's pretty amazing that the fluffy, runny, sticky mess sets up so nicely. It was a lot of fun and tasted much better than store bought. Instead of piping the marshmallow onto the cookies, I made them in a potato starch coated baking pan and cut them into disks after they had set up. Of course I didn’t really think it through and the marshmallow disks wouldn't stick to the cookie. I tried using fruit jam or peanut butter to stick them onto the cookie base but I felt that it detracted from the delicate flavors of the marshmallow and cookie. So I just placed them on the cookie base. The chocolate glaze coating held them in place just fine.


The recipe for the milan cookies appeared very straightforward. But I messed up somehow. Maybe I misunderstood the piping instructions, but I ended up with a lot of tiny cookies. Like the recipe instructed, I used a 1/4-inch plain tip and piped out 1-inch long sections which could give me enough to make over 200 miniature cookies instead of 3 dozen Milano-sized sandwich cookies. Maybe I was supposed to pipe out 1-inch wide sections instead of 1-inch long sections? I actually stopped after piping two sheet pans worth so I ended up baking about 80 miniature cookies.


The flavor of the cookie was okay, but the texture of my cookies was nothing like a Milano. Mine were much thinner than those used in Milanos and were like chewy tuiles. Not good. Maybe my batter was too runny? I didn’t have time to redo the cookie batter so I continued on with the recipe anyway. I made the chocolate ganache filling and assembled the sandwich cookies. I did not enjoy these at all. I should have cut my losses early by only assembling a few cookies for the photographs, saving the ganache for something else and then tossing the rest of the cookies into the compost bin. Yes, I disliked my cookies that much. I felt they were a total waste of good chocolate.

So this month was 50-50 for me. My mallows were good. My milans were bad. I'm sure the other Daring Bakers fared better than I did.

The fine print:
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.

Blueberry Hand Pies

Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake and I had the honor of choosing the theme for this month's You Want Pies With That. We asked the participants to come up with a pie that reminds them of a "Taste of Summer". Summer can conjure up seasonal fruit or carnival foods, but it can also be about sunburns and bored kids. I was one of those bored kids.



The concept of over scheduled children driven around by a "soccer mom" didn't quite exist when I was growing up. My parents didn’t send us to camp or summer school. In fact, it was okay to leave children at home alone unsupervised for a few hours back then. My brothers and I would hang around the house and try not to destroy the house or each other.

My mom never let us have any junk food normally. But during the summer break we could occasionally go to the corner store and pick out something sugary. I always chose a Hostess Fruit Pie. I know it sounds gross and I am a bit ashamed to admit that I like it, but a 9 year old me thought it was delicious. [Note: Hostess Fruit Pies are commercially produced hand pies.]



So I decided to bake some miniature blueberry hand pies as a tribute to that childhood summertime treat.



Blueberry Hand Pies
(22-24 mini hand pies)

1 quantity of Flaky Pie Crust (see recipe below)

Blueberry Filling:
14 ounces blueberries
6 tbsp granulated sugar
5 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest

Optional glaze:
1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tbsp water
1-2 tsp granulated sugar

To make the filling:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

To assemble the hand pies:
Roll out your chilled dough to about 1/8-inch thick. Using a 4-inch round cutter, cut out 4-inch circles. (You can reuse the dough scraps once. Lay the scraps, side by side slightly overlapping and roll them between plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough for at least 15 minutes before cutting out more circles from the rolled scraps.) You should get about 22-24 circles.

Spoon about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of the blueberry filling, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Brush the edges lightly with cold water (to help the dough stick) and fold dough in half. Using your fingers, press the border to seal it and then press the border using the tines of a fork. Refrigerate filled hand pies for 30-60 minutes.



To bake:
Preheat oven to 400F. If desired, brush the chilled turnovers with egg glaze and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Use a sharp knife to cut 3 steam vents into the top of each turnover. Bake at 400F for 15-20 minutes or until the pastry is lightly golden and the filling is bubbling. Let hand pies cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Flaky Pie Crust
(makes 20 ounces dough - enough pastry for 22-24 hand pies)

7 ounces (14 tbsp) unsalted butter, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
11 1/4 ounces (2 1/4 cups) bleached all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
5 to 7 tbsp ice water
1 tbsp cider vinegar

Divide the 7 ounces (14 tbsp) of butter into 2 portions: 4.5 ounces and 2.5 ounces (9 tbsp and 5 tbsp). Refrigerate the 4.5 ounce portion and freeze the 2.5 ounce portion for at least 30 minutes.

Place the flour, salt and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade. Process for a few seconds to combine.

Add the 4.5 ounces of (refrigerated) butter and process for about 20 seconds or until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the 2.5 ounces of (frozen) butter and pulse until the frozen butter is the size of peas.

Add the 5 tbsp of ice water and the vinegar and pulse 6-7 times. Pinch a small amount of the mixture to see if it holds together. If not, add another 1 tbsp water and pulse 3 times. Try pinching again to see if it holds together. If not, add the final 1 tbsp water and pulse 3 times.

Divide the dough in half. Wrap each portion with plastic wrap and flatten into discs. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.