Saturday, January 23, 2010

Not Dulce De Leche Cookies


This post was suppose to be about Dulce De Leche Cookies. I have read about them and thought about them and dreamed about them. Dulce De Leche is a very, very, creamy caramel. It is basically made by boiling a can of condensed milk until it turns into a rich caramel goo.You can find directions here. Some say there are risks of explosion in boiling the can. So, you can buy this premade in a jar or can in the hispanic/mexican section of the grocery store if you don't want to take the risk . I prefer not to scrape milky substances from my kitchen ceiling, so I opted for the latter.
 I wanted to love it..... I wanted to ask it where it had been my entire life. But, alas, my culinary tastes must not be refined enough for dulce de leche. I just thought it was blah!
The recipe for the cookie that the dulce de leche was suppose to spread between was very nice. Subtle, buttery and flakey. It just seemed to melt away in your mouth like shortbread.
After tasting the dulce de leche over and over again, trying to convince myself that I liked it, I finally called on an old friend... Meet Mr. Pillsbury:


Mr. Pillsbury makes a decent icing when you are just too tired to whip up your own. I'm not a huge fan of canned icing as a rule, but I had this in my pantry and it was looking better than the brown tar that I was facing in the other can. I 'm sure there are some great chefs and food bloggers that have just collapsed due to the fact that I have Americanized this recipe in such a ridiculous manner. Well, I didn't want to waste those precious butter cookies that Princess Run Wild and I made earlier!
  It really was good. The sugar coma was the worst part. No.... no. It was the children that bounced off the wall from the sugar overload that was the worst. The cookies themselves were quite a treat! And why is it that adults go into sugar comas but children go into sugar overload hyperactive mode? Something just doesn't seem right about that!
As an added bonus, to get you into the upcoming Valentine's Day mood, I  made them into sweet little heart cutout cookies with princess pink glitter sprinkles*. You know what they say about us southern women: "glitter runs through our veins." Enjoy!

*Please make sure to only indulge in EDIBLE glitter. There is a difference.



Not Dulce De Leche Cookies

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted, plus extra for dusting
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and softened (if you use salted butter, omit 1/2 tsp)
1 can frosting, premade, room temperature or dulce de leche(if you  must)
Directions
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
In a food processor, combine flour, sugar, salt and butter. Pulse until dough comes together into a ball. If the dough is too sticky add a little more flour so that you can shape the soft dough into a ball. Wrap the dough ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes.
Sprinkle some flour onto your work surface and roll the dough 1/8-inch thick. Using a 2-inch round cookie cutter cut out the cookies and transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet. Bring the dough scraps together and gently press into a ball. Flour your work surface, re-roll 1/8-inch thick and cut out more rounds.
Bake the cookies until they are golden and firm, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely, about 25 minutes.
 Spread about 1 1/2 teaspoons of  frosting or dulce de leche (if you must) on the flat side of a cookie and sandwich with the flat side of another cookie.

7 comments:

Julia, the Thanksgiving Girl said...

Aw those look cute!

Sonya said...

I've made dulce de leche by boiling it and it came out fine. I cant get it over here so I made caramel apple slices with it..soo good. It has a very subtle taste in my opinion..more milky than caramel like but when you can't get regular caramels like you are used to, dulce de leche is a beautiful thing..lol

These cookies look so good though..so very Valentine like:)

Sinful Southern Sweets said...

Sonya, I wonder if the homemade version would not be better. I keep reading about people just raving about dulce de leche. I feel like maybe I just had a bad can. Or perhaps the canned variety is just not as good as the homemade. I'm not giving up all hope. I'm going to find something to incorporated the leftovers into

Chef Aimee said...

Oh I love these cookies and want to make them with my nephew!

Abby said...

I've always wanted to try making my own dulce de leche!

Glad you liked the brittle. I had a hard time staying away, too. I may or may not have eaten it for breakfast with coffee. Ahem.

Thanks for stopping by!

diva said...

i love edible glitter! one of my sinful indulgences i think! :) beautiful cookies. And thank you for stopping by The Sugar Bar. x

grace said...

i wonder what happens if a person devours inedible glitter...
meanwhile, i think these are adorable. i don't have anything against canned icing--it has it's applications, that's for sure!