Apricot Lime Wagon Wheels

Rich, crumbly cookies sandwiched with fluffy marshmallow and zingy jam, cloaked in thick dark chocolate. # 269: Apricot Lime Wagon Wheels

I had Darius Rucker’s song Wagon Wheel playing on repeat while I got dark chocolate on every surface in the kitchen. Safe to say, not Nathan’s favorite bake, as a clean freak who dislikes country music. Luckily he got to eat almost all of them so I think he’s forgiven me!

Are you more familiar with moon pies or wagon wheels? It seems to be another odd American thing – we don’t use the metric system and we don’t call marshmallow cookie sandwiches wagon wheels.

The only difference I could find when reading through recipes, is that moon pies tend to have fluffier cakes instead of shortbread. Almost like a chocolate-encased whoopie pie! Honestly, there’s no way to lose here.

Sugar, butter, flour! Pivoting to musical theatre for a second.

The most soothing part of shortbread. Besides eating it, obviously.

Fluffy sand.

This was a joint effort between me, the freezer and the pastry scraper. Buttery bakes and summer have a messy relationship.

My favorite cookie trick! I think I first saw it on Thida Bevington’s Instagram, though I’ve seen it around a lot since then. Taking a bigger cookie cutter and swirling the hot cookies around to make them perfectly round before they set. Magic!

Italian meringue = amazing marshmallow fluff.

I’ve been getting Swiss and Italian meringue mixed up for weeks! Italian is easier in my opinion: make a quick simple syrup and pour it slowly into your whipped egg whites til you get a mountain range of glossy peaks. Swiss meringue gently cooks the egg whites and sugar in a bain marie and then beats it til cool.

Both get essentially the same result, but I find Italian meringue less messy to make.

Success! The proteins in egg whites are impressive little body builders. The amino acids link arms with each other and keep me from having meringue in my hair. Despite this cool fact, it’s still lightly terrifying to flip a full bowl of meringue upside down over my head.

Dipping the base cookies and letting them solidify first is a genius idea from the cookie recipe I found. Less mess when coating the completed sandwiches later! I was imagining trying to dunk them whole in the chocolate with dubious results.

Tell the nuns, I found how to trap a cloud and pin it down.

Finally got to use the apricot lime jam I mentioned in my almond apricot cake post, yay! It’s regular apricot jam but with lime juice and zest instead of lemon, and it tastes like a bright summery cocktail.