Homemade Milanos

Jeff and I were grocery shopping a while ago, and he paused longingly at a container of shortbread cookies, topped with chocolate.  Of course, this was your generic warehouse store, and the container of cookies held way more cookies than he or I should ever have in the house at one time.  I dragged my reluctant boyfriend along to stay on task, but the seed was firmly planted in my brain.

Before coating in chocolate

When we got home, I began my search.  Believe it or not, this recipe did not come from Pinterest [pause for shouts of shock and awe].  You know how much I love Pinterest.  Pinterest is ideal for hours of lazy browsing through pictures of things that I will never or could never do and occasionally stumbling on something beautiful that I can and will do.  Searching for something specific, however, is not a task Pinterest serves well.  So I hit up Google and found a food network recipe.

Now, these are shortbread cookies, which means the main ingredient is butter, sugar, vanilla, and flour.  No cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate, raisins, oatmeal.  These are as delicious and basic as they get.  Why am I reminding you of this?  Simple!

You must use butter and sugar.

That's right, folks.  Some of you think you can substitute these things in recipes.  I can't tell you how many Pinterest links tell me that I can use bananas instead of eggs or applesauce instead of oils.  That's lovely.  It's also about as true as saying, "You can substitute tofu for the meat in this recipe!"  No, no you can't.  Tofu has it's time and place, but it is NOT a substitute.

You can disguise zucchini in brownies all you want, my little health nut friends, but you just leave the butter and sugar where they belong.  If you feel guilty about it, hit the treadmill afterwards.

Back to the cookies.

The original recipe suggested coating half the cookie with melted chocolate, which I did, but we discovered by accident that these make good little sandwich cookies... just like Milanos!  Mine look really stupid because it was a baking accident, but they tasted fantastic.  So ignore how stupid it looks and you make yours look prettier.  Or you can stick with coating just half.  Those were inhaled just as quickly as the sandwiches.

Homemade Milano Shortbread Cookies

Don't get crazy with chocolate or it just
gets messy

Adapted from here

3/4 pound of butter (aka 3 sticks), at room temperature
1 cup of sugar, with some extra for sprinkling at the end
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 1/2 cup flour
Smidge of salt
6 oz chocolate chips (1 cup), melted

1. Beat butter and sugar until just combined.  Add vanilla.  Mix in flour and salt until completely incorporated.
2. Form the dough into a ball and place it on a lightly floured surface.  Pat into a flat disc, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Roll dough out to a thick 1/2 inch.  Cut dough in 3x1 rectangles and place on an ungreased baking sheet.  Sprinkle with a little sugar.
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350.  Cookies should be just lightly browned at the edges.
5. Allow to cool completely.
6. Place cookies on wax paper.  Time for melted chocolate!
7. In a microwave safe bowl, pour half of your chocolate chips.  Melt in the microwave on increments of 30 seconds until soft and mushy.  Pour the rest of your chocolate into the warm chocolate and stir until smooth.
8. Spread half of each cookie with chocolate (or make cookie sandwiches).  Let them cool and the chocolate harden.  I expedite this process by letting them cool in the fridge first to harden the chocolate faster.

This produces a ton of cookies.  I took half to the girls I babysit and we still had a ton.  Be careful!