Salted Dulce de Leche Chocolate Tart

I'm not in a relationship. Well, I'm in relationships, I have friends, a sister, parents, all the extended family, and people like that, but I'm not in a relationship with a man/boy/male.
If I was, I'd probably make him fat. So, it's a good thing that my sister's boyfriend if a skinny guy because I've made it my goal to break his addiction to chicken fingers, fast food pizza, and Snickers and turn him on to something called--what's the word again? Oh, yeah, flavor. He doesn't even like brownies. I swear to God, I will change him.
The one food I've ever seen him get emotional over is manjar. He doesn't just like the creamy Chilean dulce de leche, he has a relationship with it, and I guess you can add it to my list of relationships too.
His birthday was last weekend, the same day as my mom's, so I decided to make him a birthday treat. Salted caramel chocolate dulce de leche bars. Oh. Yes. These things are all sorts of dangerous.
My sister brought them on a picnic dinner with all of his other favorite foods and was kind enough to snap a few shots of the bars at home on a picnic blanket and in their mouths.
Happy Birthday Al Pal!

Sorry there are no pictures. I told my sister to take pictures of it when they were on their picnic because I thought the scenery would be great for the pictures. They didn't take pictures, though. They squished it in the picnic basket and then they ate it. Sorry. I promise I'll make it again, and when I do, you'll be the first to see the pictures!

Chocolate Dulce de Leche:
Makes 1 9 inch tart

1 quart 2% milk
1 cup of sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup of heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
3 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate
1 tsp sa salt + more for the top

1 stick of butter, melted
2 cups ground digestive biscuits
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 Tbs sea salt

For the Dulce de Leche:
In a large pot, combine int sugar and milk. Bring to a simmer, stirring regularly, until the sugar it totally dissolved.
Remove from the heat and add your baking soda (if it's lumpy, you can first dissolve it in about 2 Tbs of warm water) and salt. Whisk like crazy to combine, then return the pot to the heat.
Bring the milk back up to a simmer and cook for about an hour, until it is pale brown in color, stirring only occasionally.
Continue cooking, keeping a close eye on the mixture until it deepens in color, has reduced to 1 cup, and is about the thickness of jarred caramel, it will thicken even more when cooled.
Remove from the heat, strain through a fine sieve and cool to room temperature (it's fine if the mixture is still pretty warm)
Bring the cream and newly made dulce de leche to a simmer in a heavy pot, stirring until the dulce de leche is dissolved.
In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and slowly pour in the dulce de leche, whisking as you pour. Continue whisking until the mixture is very well combined.
Return the mixture to the pan and cook over a gentle flame until the mixture is thickened and the spoon leaves tracks on the bottom of the pot. Remove from the heat and whisk in the chocolate and vanilla extract as if you were making a ganache.
For the Crust:
(Best made when the milk and sugar are still simmering for the dulce de leche)
Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line the bottom and sides of a 9 inch springform pan with a piece of parchment and grease the parchment.
In a food processor, blitz the digestives, salt, and brown sugar until very fine. Add the melted butter and pulse until the mix becomes thickened and crumby.
Press into the bottom of the pan and just about 1/4 inch up the sides. You want a good 1/2 inch thick crust for this recipe.
Sprinkle the top evenly with about 1-2 tsp sea salt and bake for 15 minutes. Chill until cooled after removing from the oven.
Construction:
Once the crust is cooled, pour the dulce de leche into the crust and spread into an even layer. Chill in the fridge until cold and set (2-3 hours)
To remove from the pan, just pop off the sides and peel away the parchment. Cut into generous slices, and enjoy!

The DulceDoodle

I'm not a fan of snickerdoodles, but because I'm a good sister, and she's been begging for them for about a month now, I indulged my twinny and made snickerdoodles for this week's Sunday Sweetie. Because yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, and I cannot possibly make a cookie without some element of gooeyness, I decided to use the can of dulce de leche I'd been saving and make what three different people have told me is the best cookie in the whole wide world: The DulceDoodle.
These cookies are essentially a riff on the Argentine alfajore, which is a buttery cookie with cajeta (dulce de leche made with goat's milk) sandwiched in the middle. Alfajores are divine, by the way. Instead of a sandwich, though, this cookie is stuffed. Instead of a butter cookie, I made a not-super-sweet snickerdoodle with espresso powder and dulce de leche in the dough. Oh, and there's a special technique to really caramelize the cinnamon sugar on the outside and give it that perfectly burnt taste. Essentially, this cookie tastes blissfully foreign, but like your grandma made them at the same time. They're really, really good--and I really don't even like snickerdoodles.

Gnam Gnam!

DulceDoodles
(Makes about 20 cookies with leftover filling)

Cookie dough:
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, plus 2 tablespoons
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbs dulce de leche (straight out of the can, without the additions)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2-3/4 tsp instant coffee powder (depending on how much coffee flavor you want)

1) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla, egg, dulce de leche, and coffee and continue beating until fluffy.
2) In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cream of tartar, soda, and salt. Add to the wet ingredients in 2 batches, mixing well between batches. When combined, cool dough thoroughly (at least 3 hours in the fridge)

For the Dulce de Leche:
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp milk (I used almond milk)

Rolling Sugar:
1/4 c sugar
1 1/2 Tbs ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp chili powder
(Mix all well)

1) Fill a medium sauce pan with water and completely submerge the can. Bring the water to a boil and cook the can for 3 hours. (Make sure the can is always completely submerged to prevent it from exploding and causing a whole mess of dangerous problems. If you are not comfortable with this method, there are several ways to make it with an opened can, in a slow cooker, and it is available already canned in most grocery stores, though you may have to check the international section)
2) Empty the can (minus the 3T used in the dough) into a bowl and thoroughly mix in the cinnamon, milk and vanilla. If you have time, it is easier to fill the cookies after the filling has cooled for a while and is a little thicker.

Making the Cookies:

1) Preheat oven to 400* Form the dough into rounds with a cookie scoop or spoon.
2) Split each dough ball in half and use your finger to create a dent in the middle of each half. Fill the halves with the dulce de leche, put the halves back together and roll back into a ball to seal the filling inside.
3) To really caramelize the sugar: Roll each ball in a little bit of water, then in the cinnamon sugar.
4) Place the cookies about an inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet (preferably not greased) and bake for 10 minutes, turning the pan half way through.
5) Because the sugar caramelizes, it's hard to tell when they're finished by their color, so make sure to keep an eye on them. After removing them from the oven, they will be very soft and fragile from the filling, so let them cool on the baking sheets for about 5 to 10 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.

6) ENJOY! Y Feliz Cinco de Mayo

Sorry for the lack of pictures, the cookies were snatched and devoured before I was able to get any shots, so I took that as a good sign, even if it does mean a slightly barren blog post.