Veggievangelist: Dulce de Leche Goat Cheese Cookies

This recipe is decadence upon decadence. It was printed out on a recipe card for work, and since we'd just salted a batch of goat curd, I thought I'd give it a try. Wow. The other aside is that 1. I had a free afternoon, and 2. happened to have a jar of dulce de leche sauce in the pantry. In any case, dulce de leche sauce may be a little tricky to find. Stonewall Kitchens makes it, I found it at Your DeKalb Farmer's Market. You may always look for a recipe and make it yourself. It really isn't that difficult.

The trick here is the sable-style cookies. You really do need to roll them and measure out the cookies as indicated. Use a very sharp knife to score and slice the dough. If it is too soft, they won't cut right.

Dulce de Leche Goat Cheese Cookies

Origin unknown

Ingredients:

2 sticks salted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup confectioner's sugar

2 large egg yolks

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup pecans, finely chopped

7 oz. Dulce de Leche sauce

3.5 oz. CalyRoad Creamery Fresh Plain Goat Cheese

Powdered sugar for dusting

In a mixing bowl, blend butter and sugars together until creamy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the yolks one at a time, and whisk well. Using a rubber spatula, fold the flour into the bowl. Mix until dough is roughly the same texture throughout (I found it to be a bit crumbly). Stir in pecans.

Divide dough into two balls. Place each ball on its own sheet of plastic wrap. Using the wrap to press the dough, roll the balls into eight inch logs. Twist the ends of the wrap tight and refrigerate the dough from two hours to overnight. When ready to bake, remove rolls from refrigerator and proceed.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Unwrap dough and place on a cutting board. Starting from the center and working your way out, score the log with the blade of your knife to mark 24 cookies on the log. Cut half, then half, then each 1/4 into sixths for a total of 24 cookies per log. Slice the log into the marked pieces. Do this with each roll.

Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Space cut cookies on parchment so that they are about 1 inch apart. Place baking sheets in hot oven, and after 10 minutes, rotate sheets, baking for a total of 20 minutes, or until the cookies are golden. Remove from oven and let cool. Warm the dulce de leche in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently. When just warm, remove from heat and stir in goat cheese. Cool the goat cheese de leche mix.

To finish cookies, take about a teaspoon of the mixture and spread it on the bottom of one cookie, and sandwich it with another cookie. Continue until finished. Dust cookies with confectioner's sugar.

Makes approximately 24 cookies.