the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group takes a turn for the sweet this week, with Dulce de Leche Duos, a sandwich cookie that uses a double hit of carmelized sweet milk - in the cookie batter and as a filling.
n.o.e.'s notes:
- Jodie of Beansy Loves Cake chose the cookies ths week. The recipe is on page 161 of the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can also find the recipe on Jodie's blog.
- Dulce de leche has a creamy consistency and a caramel flavor. Although it is easily available in ready-made form at the grocery store, it isn't terribly difficult to whip some up in your very own kitchen, without all of the scary steps involved in making caramel. If you check the special dulce de leche post on the TWD blog, or this week's P&Q post, you will find several methods of preparing dulce de leche - beginning either with whole milk or with a can (or two) of sweetened condensed milk.
- After several moments of paralyzing indecision while considering all of the different - highly praised - methods, I decided to try cooking dulce de leche from scratch, starting with whole milk and following Rick Bayless' directions. I immediately ran into a problem: I was fresh out of whole milk, or, more accurately, I was out of fresh whole milk.
- I went on to Plan B: a can of sweetened condensed milk submerged in water in the crock pot set on "low." Mine cooked for nearly 12 hours and when I opened the can, it was exactly the shade of peanut butter. While it was simmering under all that water the can did rust a bit on the outside (but luckily not the inside), so next time I'd probably wrap it in something to protect the white interior of my crock from rust spots (I was able to remove them this time).
- Aside from a bit of tricky math in scaling the recipe to 1/3, these cookies were a snap to throw together. I ended up with 24 acceptable single cookies and a couple of duds. I sandwiched three pairs of cookies and froze the rest. The extra dulce de leche is also ensconced in the freezer.
- When I was assembling the cookies, I spread dulce de leche on the flat bottoms of each cookie. Before sandwiching the two halves together, I sprinkled some fleur de sel on top of the dulce de leche layer, aiming for a salted caramel effect. I photographed the cookies, and then realized that the dulce de leche filling was oozing out. For the remaining sandwiches, I think I'll spread the filling in a thinner layer.
- These cookies seem like they would make excellent ice cream sandwiches (one of Dorie's suggestions), so I might try that with my extra cookies.
the verdict:
The cookies look and smell fabulous, but because my husband and I are not eating sweets for Lent we haven't tasted them. I fed a few crumbs to the dogs, and they said "woof" and gave two enthusiastic paws up. I baked these cookies at the last minute, so I'm posting this now, but I'm on the lookout for some human tasters, and I'll come back and update with appropriate quotes if I'm successful in finding any!
26 comments:
Ooh, how was it with the salt? Great idea. They look fantastic. Thanks for baking with me!!
What a graet idea to try salty ones ! I wish I was around to test !!
I'm drooling! They look delicious. Maybe book club can be your testers...
What a great idea to add salt! I'd love to know how you got the rust spots out of your crock because I have them too.
I love the look of the oozing caramel.
The fleur de sel is a great idea!
Delish! Great idea to add the fleur de sel!
Love the idea of putting some fleur de sel in the filling! I'm stealing that idea for next time. Andorra The Dog is very jealous that your dogs got to have some cookies since Mummy told her that dogs aren't allowed to eat cookies. HA!
-CB
http://iheartfood4thought.com
I added some fleur de sel to my dulce de leche, and it was great! I hope you get to try these at some point; I was surprised how much we liked them. Oh, and my solution for the DDL running out was to add peanut butter. =)
Great looking cookies, especially with the salt. My Patches would also give "two paws up", but she does that for most anything. :)
Genius! Fleur de sel... just what these needed. I love these -they look "puffy". Mine were flat as flapjacks, but still delicious. Glad you found the crockpot - wasn't that just the easiest no-stir method?
Love the photo with the salt on top of the filling Nancy - it was a great idea! Even my crazy sweet tooth thought these were too sweet! I feel your pain on the oozing filling - I ran into the same problem :)
They look incredible--the fleur de sel addition is brilliant! Want to mail some? I'll test them. lol ;-)
They look fantastic! I'm sure you'll receive some very positive feedback :-)
Maybe I overcooked my sweetened condensed milk, the finished dulce de leche was not creamy: the substance was more pudding/paste like... But it still tasted really good!!
Awesome Nancy! Bet you can't wait to try them :) I had to do a rewind this week, didn't have the ingredients. Still want to make them though!
Your cookies look delicious!
If I am going to have cookies let them be sweet and indulgent.
Two paws up? These are good cookies! I hope you enjoy them once you're able to sample them.
I found them a bit sweet and wish I thought of adding the sea salt as you did. That would have changed the flavor entirely.
I haven't tried these yet. I better give them a go!
I REALLY think the ddl needed salt, so what a great idea!
Great ooey gooey in your cookies there.
mmmm. i so wanted to make these, but i had other baking obligations: cookies and cakes and tarts for my dad, grandpa, and bf's nephew. i'll try your salt trick when i do make them:)
Your willpower is awesome. I'll definitely have to remember to add a little salt next time. I did make my own DDL, adapted from a Nigella recipe, but now I'd really like to find that Rick Bayless version you mention. Sounds great!
Nothing wrong with all the dulce oozing out of the cookies. Delish.
Will have to add the salt next time.
Those look absolutely perfect. I made it (twice) from The Perfect Scoop recipe and it took about an hour and a quarter each time...so if you are in a hurry ever, I recommend that one as it was truly easy and delicious. Your cookies are so pretty.
To make a less gooey dulce de leche, it must be cooked very slowly, constantly stirred and add 1 tsp of baking soda in the mix.
There's two kinds of dulce de leche, one to eat spread on cookie or toast and another one thicker, the last one is used for bakery, preventing oozing (dulce de leche repostero). A bit of time in the fridge works wonders too.
Look: http://www.pastaconfetti.com/dulce_de_leche.cfm
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