Dulce de Leche Rosemary Shortbread Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients
Rosemary Shortbread
225g(1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g(1 cup) powdered sugar, sifted
2teaspoonfinely minced dried rosemary
1 1/4teaspoonkosher salt
300g(2 cups) all-purpose flour
Olive oil, optional
Dulce de Leche
1can sweetened condensed milk, Or cheat and just buy a jar of it at the store. I won't tell. I promise.
Instructions
Rosemary Shortbread
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large mixing bowl, beat the butter on low speed until smooth. Add the sugar, rosemary and salt. Mix on low speed until well combined. Add the flour and mix on low speed until just uniform in texture.
Gather the dough into a ball. Transfer to a piece of parchment paper, cover with a second piece of parchment and flatten to form a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least 3 hours and up to 5 days. If you are running low on time, just throw it in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut the dough into whatever shapes you like and place them on the lined baking sheet. These won’t spread too much, if at all.
Bake until golden around the edges, approximately 14 - 16 minutes. When I am making these cookies without the filling, I like to brush a coat of olive oil on the cookies right when they come out of the oven. When filling the cookies with something sweet like dulce de leche, you can omit this step.
Dulce de Leche Filling
Honestly, with the time and effort (did I mention time?) that it takes to make your own dulce de leche, whether you're using a can of condensed milk or making it from scratch, it is much more efficient and practical to buy already-made dulce de leche from the store. But if you do want to make your own, this is the sweetened condensed milk route.
Remove the label from the can and place the can on its side in a large pot. Fill the pot with room temperature water and make sure the water level rises at least two inches above the top of the can. It is extremely important that the entire can of condensed milk stays fully submerged in the water during the cooking process. The water level should never get any lower than one inch above the can as it cooks, so make sure to check on the water level every half hour and be ready to add more boiling water as needed.
Simmer the can for two to three hours, depending on how dark you want the dulce de leche to be. The only downside of cooking condensed milk in the can is that you cannot really tell how dark the dulce de leche is until you open the can. Always let the can of condensed milk return to room temperature before opening it. Do not open the can while it's still hot, as the hot dulce de leche may squirt out because of the pressure inside the can. Oh yeah, the can will be piping hot. Use tongs. Please.
Transfer some of the dulce de leche into a piping bag and used it to fill the cooled cookies. You can simply use a spoon but I used a piping bag to make it a tad bit less messy. You will have some dulce de leche leftover after filling the sandwich cookies. This is not a bad thing. Drizzle it on everything you eat for the next three meals. You can thank me later.
This recipe makes 50 - 60 two-bite individual shortbread cookies or 25 - 30 sandwich cookies. You can easily halve or double the recipe. I would suggest doubling, because these sweet and savoury cookies, even on their own, are extremely addictive.