Dulce de Leche Sandwich Cookies

Husband attended an uninteresting invigorating boy’s night of Wii last Friday, while I stayed at home watching Gilmore Girls season 1 with my face slathered in a green clarifying mud mask, eating caramelized banana crepes. In hopes that in shipping dessert out with Husband would win reviews about the cookies and shrink Husband’s portion of the bill for the inevitable delivery pizza, I baked dulce de leche sandwich cookies from Annie’s Eats. I guess I should’ve known that a Wii-gaming mob of 20-something guys weren’t going to “review” my baked goods more than to utter “good,” “fine,” or another similarly indescriptive response. Nevertheless, these cookies baked up round, soft, very sweet smelling and a lovely hue of golden brown. I’d make them again, but perhaps add a bit of pizazz with coffee granules or cinnamon and I certainly would look for a more critical audience.

Dulce de Leche Sandwich Cookies
Recipe from Annie’s Eats
Yields approximately 15 sandwiches
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking soda
Pinch of salt
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 tbsp. dulce de leche, plus more for filling (1 can)
6 tbsp. light brown sugar, packed
¼ cup sugar
1 large egg
Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  In a small mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt.  Stir with a fork to blend.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed until soft and smooth.  Mix in the 6 tablespoons dulce de leche, and both the brown and white sugars.  Beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in the egg, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  (The mixture may look curdled – don’t worry.)  With the mixer on low speed, mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated.

Spoon the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, using a heaping teaspoon of dough for each cookie and leaving 2 inches between them.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back halfway through baking time.  The cookies should be a golden honey brown with a light crust, but they will still be soft.  Remove the cookies from the oven and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for a few minutes.  Using a metal spatula, carefully transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.    Repeat with the remaining dough.

Once the cookies are completely cool, pair them up by size.  Spread the flat side of one cookie from each pair with a small amount of dulce de leche, and top with the other cookie.  Repeat with the remaining cookies.

*Note: The “freckles” on my cookies are caused by the unrefined brown sugar (tapa de dulce granulado) that I use for baking. It’s much friendlier in appearance used in quickbreads and cakes and my only decent brown sugar option.