great grandfather, honeymooners and milanos...what a combination

as a small child, i spent many days with my great grandparents-my father's grandparents. i was their only great grandchild at the time and let's just say that they indulged me-a lot! my great grandfather, whom i simply called grandpa, was a fan of jackie gleason and the honeymooners. on saturday nights, he would sit down to watch the show (i realize that i am dating myself here) on a little tv that was located in a corner of the dining room. it seems that italian (american-italian) families do not like to place tvs in their parlor (what many call the living room). even my grandmother didn't watch tv in a living room, she always sat at the kitchen table to watch tv. anyway, we would watch tv together and inevitably, a bag of pepperidge farm milanos would appear. they were his favorite cookie. back then, they were only dark chocolate flavored, not mint or orange or any other flavor. he always gave me one and as a child, they were my favorite too. so, when i saw this month's challenge for the daring bakers, i jumped at the chance to try my hand a replicating that favorite childhood treat.

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She choseChocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

my husband and i had been invited to dinner with friends and i made a batch and a half, the size of quarters-very time consuming since the recipe yielded a lot more than i expected. with only some corona colombian chocolate on hand (think ibarra mexican chocolate but from colombia), i gave them a slightly spiced chocolate filling. the only problem, here in the south it is hard to keep a cookie like that crispy-too much humidity and with the wet summer we have had so far, forget trying! the cookies were well received, devoured actually. but for me, they just didn't have the texture i had hoped for. that crispy snap followed by the bittersweet chocolate flavor that i remember from my childhood. then again, the ones in the store aren't the same anymore either; cost cutting has changed them and so has my sense of nostalgia.

with the humidity in mind and the time constraints of having a full time job, a book to write and several other baking forums to participate in, i did not even attempt the marshmallow cookies. my thanks to nicole for the trip down memory lane.