Shortbread Dulce de Leche Sandwich Cookies

 

I’m a little late, but here’s my contribution to the 12 Weeks of Holiday (Christmas) Cookies roundup! I made some dulce de leche (delicious milk caramel) earlier this week, and wanted to incorporate it into a cookie. For the sandwich cookies, I chose to adapt a shortbread cookie recipe out of Marye Audet’s Everything Cookies & Brownies Cookbook, called “Petticoat Tails”, and it worked out beautifully!

Petticoat Tails
(adapted from The Everything Cookies & Brownies Cookbook & used by permission)

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt

Preparation:

Cream together the butter, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla. Blend in the flour and salt. Wrap and refrigerate overnight (I was impatient and only chilled the dough for a couple of hours).

Preheat oven to 400º F.

Roll teaspoons of dough into balls (I used a round teaspoon measuring spoon) and place on cookie sheets. Flatten the balls with the bottom of a glass, dipped in sugar, to 1/8″ thickness.

Bake for 8 – 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Notes:

I had a little difficulty with the “glass dipped in sugar” part. The sugar wouldn’t stick to the glass, but the cookies did. To remedy that, I put some demerara sugar in a small plate, placed the cookie balls in the sugar and flattened slightly with my fingers. I then placed the cookies on the (ungreased) cookie sheet, sugar-side up (spaced about 1″ apart), and flattened them with the glass. Worked like a charm!

Also, allow the cookies to cool completely on the cookie sheet after baking. I wanted these to be really pale to contrast with the dulce de leche filling, so I baked them for the minimum 8 minutes. They were fully baked and perfectly crispy – exactly what I was looking for!

But then, I expected no less from my friend, Marye. Check out her books and check out her blog, Restless Chipotle for awesome writing and recipes!

To make your own Dulce de Leche, see my recent post on Apple Cream Napoleons with Dulce de Leche. It’s super-easy, but admittedly a little time-consuming. Still, you can’t beat it for flavor and versatility – and it’ll keep for weeks. Once you make it, you’ll look for all kinds of ways to use it, too!

Dulce De Leche