Dulce de Leche - Slippin 'n slidin'!

One of my latest loves - dulce de leche. This South American (in origin) treat is basically caramelized condensed milk - either cow or goat milk. I find goat DdL has an earthier taste that has an interesting tang, cow DdL is pretty sweet, easy on the palate.  Do I have a preference? Not really! I love them both!

I was recently gifted a bottle of goat dulce de leche (with white wine!) and after gorging myself on the sweet treat, I decided to make proper use of it and incorporate it into my baking. The trick is to balance the sweetness of the dulce de leche with a cookie doesn't have too much sugar and generally has a neutral base. I revisited the madeleine pan cookies and made dulce de leche cookie sandwiches with hazelnut shortbread. The shortbread is not only subtle but the hazelnut added an almost-savoury feel to the cookie. In other words, it was a perfect pairing! I think another combination that could work would be a dark chocolate wafer or espresso cookie - using cocoa powder or espresso could add that dense bitterness that would offset the sweetness of the filling quite well.

Photographic evidence for your pleasure:

(goat dulce de leche with white wine)

(dulce de leche...is...very...fluid - use less, MUCH less to sandwich than you think you need - the day after a few of my cookies had become separated simply from sliding off the filling)