I had a craving. And a saved recipe I had found on Foodgawker. A recipe for ‘Browned Butter-Cinnamon Dulce de Leche Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies‘. Phew, what a mouthful! I don’t think I’ve ever come up with such a long name for one of my recipes! Anyway, the author of this recipe – aka, the coiner of the longest cookie name in history – is Jaclyn of Cooking Classy! Be sure to check out her blog, because there are some great recipes on there! Personally, I’m dying to try her White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake! And her Hot Fudge Sunday Cupcakes look amazing!
But first things first: let’s talk about these cookies.
Wait, hold on! Let’s first talk about the fact that I didn’t stick to Jaclyn’s recipe. You see, Jaclyn’s recipe involves browning butter, and because I’ve been working on a brown butter cake recipe I decided to use plain, regular, boring old butter instead. Really, I feel like I’ve already browned waaaaay too much butter lately…
Not that there’s anything wrong with brown butter (the brown butter cake is deeeeelish!), but you know me, I get bored easily. So regular, unsalted butter it was!
And half a can of delicious, indulgent homemade dulce de leche!
If you’re new to making dulce de leche, make sure to check out my posts on the different ways of making it. I’ve done an entire series of posts on dulce de leche! It’s really easy, I promise. In most cases, all you need is a can of sweetened, condensed milk. You can make dulce de leche by boiling the closed can, by puncturing the can and boiling the open can, you can make dulce de leche in the oven, over a water bath and even in a pressure cooker! If you have a pressure cooker, I’d suggest you use it, because making dulce de leche any other way takes time!
But my oh my is it worth it!
Dulce de Leche is a miracle… I love to eat it straight out of the can – don’t worry, I use a spoon. I’m civilized – or use it to make Dulce de Leche Brownies or Dulce de Leche Ice Cream with Salted Macademia’s!
But stuffing chocolate chip cookies with it is also a great idea!
Just look at them. All innocent-looking and all…
And yes, I placed those milk chocolate chips on top of the cookies right after the cookies came out of the oven. I usually like to press a few extra chocolate chips in the top of chocolate chip cookies before I bake them, to make them look extra chocolatey, but this time I forgot. And I also forgot to buy a new bag of dark chocolate chunks, otherwise they would have been on there too.
But let’s not dwell on the fact that I’m an airhead…
Let’s talk about the chocolate chips. To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the whole milk chocolate and dulce de leche combination. It’s a little too sweet for my taste. Next time I’m making these (which is tomorrow…) I think I’m going to salt the dulce de leche and only add dark chocolate chunks to the batter. I need something to cut through the sweetness of the dulce de leche. Plus, I love salted caramel!
Having said that, I do love, love, love the cinnamon in the cookie batter! In fact, I would have been perfectly happy just eating the entire bowl of cookie dough! The cookie dough does require a bit of chilling before rolling and baking, which is tedious, but the result is a chewy, soft cookie. I baked mine for only nine minutes and removed the cookies from the oven as soon as the edges of the cookies started to brown. I don’t like a crunchy chocolate chip cookie, but if you do, just bake them a little longer…
By the way, doesn’t that filling look gorgeous?
Enjoy!
- about ½ cup homemade or store-bought dulce de leche
- 113g (or ½ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 140g (or ½ cup + 2 tablespoons, packed) light brown sugar
- 30g (or 2 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons) granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 155g (or 1¼ cup) all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon table salt
- 1½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup mixed chocolate chips or chunks
- Using two teaspoons, scoop 15 heaped teaspoons of dulce de leche onto a plate. Place the plate in the fridge to allow the dulce de leche to firm up a little.
- In a medium-sized bowl, cream together the butter and sugars. Add the vanilla and the egg and mix briefly to combine.
- In a small bowl, stir together the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and, using a rubber spatula and stir until a smooth dough forms.
- Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine. The dough should be sticky.
- Chill the dough in the fridge for about 30 minutes, or until firm enough to roll into balls.
- Divide the dough into fifteen chunks. Using your hands, flatten a dough chunk into a thin disc shape and place one of the chilled dulce de leche blobs in the middle. Wrap the dough around the dulce de leche and roll the closed chunk into a ball. Repeat with the remaining dough chunks.
- Chill the dough balls for another 30-60 minutes in the fridge. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 175°C/350°F (standard oven setting).
- Place the dough balls 5-cm/2½-inches apart on a clean (not buttered or lined) cookie sheet (mine was black) and bake for 9 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are just starting to brown.
- Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool to room temperature. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
New favorite food quote:
oh i love the filling. yum!
These chocolate chip bars look great! They remind me of these little bars I would buy at the bodega prior to school as a kid.. what a treat they were!
Thanks Rebecca 🙂