Drowning your Sorrows in Dulce de Leche

Ok, so while our daughter was running around Patagonia recently with our good friends Kelly and Arent, I was left behind to drown my sorrows. Rather than turn to Malbec at 10:00 in the morning, I turned to dulce de leche instead. Hayley had sent us a jar during her first months in Buenos Aires. I'd opened it, tasted it, and then set it aside for a special occasion. Well, being left behind on a blustery winter day while they enjoyed a beautiful South American summer day was occasion enough for me break out that creamy and delicious jar of "sweets made of milk".

I remembered seeing a recipe in the holiday issue of Saveur magazine. Thankfully I didn't even have to venture out of the house as I had all of the ingredients in the pantry. While I used my jar of dulce de leche, lots of people claim that you can boil a can of condensed milk for 3 or 4 hours and find dulce de leche inside when the can is opened. I have nightmares about the can exploding in my kitchen every time I consider trying it. If you want to try it, let me know how it goes…otherwise I think you can buy it in the Latin food section of your grocery store.

This recipe makes about 20 cookies. They were just complicated enough to take my mind off the wanderings of my loved ones but not so hard that they frustrated me. Thankfully I only needed one to mend my lonely soul. The rest were divided among other loved ones who have supported our family through the trauma of sending a child abroad for a year.

The only changes I made to the recipe were to roll the cookie edges in shredded unsweetened coconut after they were assembled and sprinkled them with a light dusting of powdered sugar. I'd seen another recipe that suggested it. Tasted good and helped manage the sticky dulce de leche when it seeps out from between the 2 cookies.

Alfajores

1 2/3 cups cornstarch
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2/3 cup sugar
10 tbsp. unsalted butter,
softened
1 tbsp. cognac or brandy
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
4 egg yolks
Canned dulce de leche, for filling
cookies

Heat oven to 350°. In a bowl, sift together cornstarch, flour, and baking powder; set aside. In a mixer fitted with a paddle, beat together sugar and butter until fluffy. Add cognac and zest; beat. Add yolks one at a time; beat. Add dry ingredients; mix. Transfer dough to a floured surface, knead briefly; divide into 3 pieces. Working with 1 dough piece at a time, roll dough to 1/4" thickness. Using a 2 1/2" round cookie cutter, cut out cookies; transfer to parchment paper—lined baking sheets, spaced 1" apart. Reroll scraps and repeat. Bake until golden, 12–15 minutes. Let cool. Flip half the cookies over; top each with 1 heaping tsp. dulce de leche. Top with remaining cookies.