Dulce de Leche Shortbread Sandwiches

Yet another Dulce de Leche or salted caramel recipe!  See more here and here and here!

These are delicious little shortbread cookies sandwiched together with salted caramel in the middle.  I think they would make lovely gifts for a special occasion - fathers day, mothers day, a birthday or for Christmas.  

I made the Dulce de Leche and the shortbread mixture and cut the cookies out the day before. I kept them in the fridge (the cookies were raw) until the following day when I baked and assembled them.  The cookies also freeze very well.  I prefer to freeze them raw but already rolled and cut out. The on the day you are giving them away (or a day or two before), you simply bake them and pipe on the salted caramel.

Original recipe from Donna Hay Magazine. Issue 60.

Ingredients:
- 1 batch of Dulce de Leche - you can buy this at some delis or specialty stores. In theory, the canned caramel at the supermarket is the same thing, but in my experience it doesn't taste as good and this is very simple.  Details below.

- 150 grams of unsalted butter, softened
- 1/3 cup pure icing sugar, sifted
- 1.5 cups of plain flour, sifted
- 2 tablespoons of cornflour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste

Directions:

- Make your Dulce de Leche according to David Lebowitz's instructions that you will find here.  I omit the salt before cooking, as I prefer to add it afterwards - I like the salt flakes to be visible.  So, once it's nice and caramel, remove from the oven and sprinkle lightly with sea salt flakes.  Set aside to cool.

- Beat together the butter, sugar & vanilla for about 10 minutes or until pale and creamy
- Add the flours and beat until a smooth dough forms
- Roll the dough between two sheets of non stick baking paper to about 5mm thick
- Refrigerate for 30 minutes
- Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius
- Cut out the cookies using a 4cm cookie cutter - it makes approximately 50 individual cookies or 25 sandwiched cookies
- Place the cookies on lined baking trays and bake for approximately 10 minutes or until a very light golden colour - keep a close eye on them as you don't want them to get dark as they will be brittle
- Allow to cool on wire racks
- Pipe the cooled salted Dulce de Leche on to half of the cookies and top each with another cookie - I try to pipe in the middle of the cookie leaving some space on the edge so that when you sandwich the cookies together, the caramel doesn't come out.  This is mostly so if you are packaging them for gifts, the caramel doesn't stick to the packaging.

Enjoy!!!!

Love Amy xoxoxo