July's Baker's Challenge- Milano Cookies

You can tell that the weather has been hellatiously hot when 80 degrees feel comfortable. I was able to make a pizza last night without passing out in my stifling kitchen, so finally decided I might actually be able to come back upstairs to do some baking. At last, I can work on July's Baker's Challenge!

Because it's still rather warm, I chose to do the Milano cookies. I still intend to do the marshmallows, but am afraid that they and their chocolate coating will melt. For reasons that make no sense to me, the husband doesn't seem to think I need an extra refrigerator just for keeping my baked goods cool.

Thus far, I've made up the batter and am baking off the cookies. I've been reminded of why one should leave 2 inches worth of space between cookies. Out of habit, I piped them about an inch apart (as I do for lady fingers) to get more on the pan, and of course now I have long ribbons of cookie.

My first thoughts are that the batter is much too loose. Did I over cream the butter and sugar, or is it still just too warm? I've now put the batter in the fridge to see if that'll stiffen up the butter and get me a better cookie.

My other thought is surprise that I actually had lemon extract. Wonder what in the heck I bought that for, and whether 2 Tablespoons was really necessary. Guess I'll find out soon.

While waiting for all the cookies to bake, I decided to make up a batch or peanut butter popcorn, the recipe for which my sister Jennifer gave me: http://thedaringkitchen.com/forums/daring-bakers/-daring-bakers-challenges. One batch is obviously not going to be enough. I left all of the sugar out, since I use Jif peanut butter (the husband and daughter do not recognize the unsweetened variety as being actual peanut butter), and used half of the honey. This produced a deliciously gooey treat, but one which will not set up into crunchy goodness. I'm pondering adding a little sugar for the caramelizing effect. Perhaps half of the honey and half of the sugar?

But I digress. Back to the Milanos.

I'm not going to put any orange in the filling. The husband doesn't like fruit with his chocolate, especially orange, so these will be plain chocolate. The next batch I make, I plan to leave out the lemon extract and add a little peppermint oil to the filling.

After baking up pan after pan of disappointing cookies, I decided to peruse the ingredients again. Did I skip something? Well....perhaps actually using the powdered sugar instead of the granular sugar that I used would have been helpful. I'll try again tomorrow.

Perhaps I should name my Blog: How Not to Bake.