This is my third post for our little band of holiday cookie bakers, affectionately known as the Cookie Freaks. This week’s theme is “Fancies: Your cookie tray stars.” I think you’ll agree that these Salted Dulce de Leche Cookie Tarts fill that description to a tee!
Coincidentally – or maybe not so much – it is also posting day for the Food Bloggers Cookie Swap, partnering with Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. For the swap part of the FB Cookie Swap, I sent a dozen Salted Dulce de Leche Cookie Tarts to each of three other food bloggers. I hope they enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed creating them!
I took this recipe for my favorite no-chill sugar cookies, reduced the sugar a bit, and combined it with this “recipe” for dulce de leche, topped them with my favorite finishing salt, and was absolutely delighted with the combination! I think you’ll love them, too!
Salted Dulce de Leche Cookie Tarts
Yields about 2 dozen cookies.
For the cookies:
Ingredients:
- 2 cups AP flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 egg
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- ¼ cup lemon or orange juice
- 1 tsp vanilla
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350º F. Prepare a cookie sheet by your choice of (a) lining it with parchment paper; (b) lightly greasing it; or (c) lining it with a silicone baking mat.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center. Add the egg, sugar, oil, juice and vanilla to the well. Stir together, then switch to using your hand to combine thoroughly into a firm dough.
Roll out the dough to ¼” thick and cut into 1-1/2” discs. Tuck each disc into the bottom of a muffin tin and press down with a juice glass to form a rimmed cookie. Bake for 17-18 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden brown. Remove the cookies from the pan and allow to cool on racks.
I used the bottom of my 1/4 cup measure to mold the cookies, but a juice glass, or whatever fits the cups of your muffin tin, will work.
Dulce de Leche:
Ingredient:
- 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk
Preparation:
Fill a large saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Remove all labels from the cans of sweetened condensed milk, and put the unopened cans in the pot of boiling water. Cover the pot and reduce the heat slightly so that the water continues to boil a bit less violently. Allow to boil for 2 hours, taking care to keep the water level over the tops of the cans at all times. Keep a kettle of hot water available to top off the pot when the water level drops. You can even go 3 hours, if you like it darker.
Remove the cans from the water and allow to cool before handling. If not using right away, you should probably mark the contents on the can. I keep mine in the refrigerator, just to be on the safe side (see previous paragraph regarding “paranoia”). Once opened, you should transfer it to a sealable container and refrigerate. It’ll keep for months unopened, and weeks after opening… if it actually lasts that long!
When you want to use some, open a can of your now-dulce de leche, spoon some out into a microwave-safe bowl. It will be really thick. Microwave on high for 15 seconds, give it a stir, and microwave for another 10 seconds. Repeat if necessary to get the spreadable or drizzly consistency you need. It will set up once cooled, so save this step for the last moment before serving.
Assemble:
Spoon or pipe a small amount of the dulce de leche into the “cookie tart”. Sprinkle each with a pinch of Wild Hibiscus Flower Pyramid Salt Flakes or your favorite finishing salt.
I used this fun decorating kit sent to me by OXO, one of the cookie swap’s partners to fill the cookies, but you can use two spoons – one to scoop up the dulce de leche, then another to push it off into each cookie.
You will have leftover dulce de leche, but since when is that a bad thing? If you haven’t eaten it with a spoon, just transfer the unused portion into an airtight container and refrigerate it until you do. 😉
Allow the cookies to sit undisturbed for several hours, or overnight, so the filling will set up. Then you can store them in a container for at least a week.
If they haven’t all disappeared before then.
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Thank you for stopping by – you’ll love these cookies and there’s more coming up! Visit often – surprises are in store!
Please visit the rest of the Cookie Freaks crew and see what delights they’ve baked up for you, this week!
Diana Cannone, To Di for Bakery, http://todiforbakery.com/news/
Dianne Simmons, Dianne’s Dishes, http://www.diannesdishes.com/
Judy Chiappini, No Fear Entertaining, http://www.nofearentertaining.blogspot.com/
Mandee Racer Pogue, The Kitchen Wife, http://www.thekitchenwife.net/
Marye Audet-White, Restless Chipotle, http://www.restlesschipotle.com/
Sandy Smith, Eat Real, http://www.weeatreal.com/
Sherri Jo, The Adventures of Kitchen Girl Jo, http://kitchengirljo.blogspot.com/
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If you’d like to learn more about the Food Bloggers Cookie Swap, or would like to participate next year, visit here and sign up to receive notifications!
All opinions, recipes, text, and photographs are my own and original to RJ Flamingo and her real-life alter-ego, and are copyrighted materials, not to be reproduced in any form without express permission from the author. Links contained in this post may be affiliate links to my Amazon store. If you start here and buy anything on Amazon, I get a small commission. This does not increase your price, but does help me pay my web host. And buy food. Thank you for your support!
Now I would love to try these…. Michelle
OMG! they look so good! can you ship me some 🙂
I’ll see what I can do, Theresa. LOL! 😉