If you're craving simple, old-fashioned cookies that taste good and don't include a lot of weird ingredients, these are the cookies for you. The cookies are a little soft, a little crunchy, a little crackly on top, and taste of caramelized sugar and sweet milk. In other words, the cookies are good! They are great with tea or coffee, milk, or alongside fruit or ice cream. The cookies also are great "end pieces" to sandwich ice cream. I especially like the cookies when sandwiching caramel or butter pecan ice cream--yum!!! The recipe below makes only a small batch of cookies, and you can make them in your air fryer or regular oven in time for an after dinner treat. The dough keeps well in the refrigerator, so you can bake a few cookies at a time, if you'd like, and stash the remainder of the dough for another day. Now, where to get the dulce de leche? It's available at Target and Walmart and many larger grocery stores. You also can make your own dulce de leche, which is easy and will save you money. The simplest--and probably safest--way is by microwaving sweetened condensed milk. See the instructions below. Yes, you'll have dulce de leche left over from making the cookies. It's great drizzled over ice cream (warm the dulce de leche first), stirred into your coffee, or just smear a little over the Dulce de Leche Cookies and enjoy!
Dulce de Leche Cookies -- Makes about 12
1/2 cup of dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons of canola oil
2 tablespoons of dulce de leche
1 egg
1 cup of flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/8 teaspoon of salt
Sugar for sprinkling
In a medium bowl or measure (I use a quart-sized Pyrex measure, combine the brown sugar, oil, dulce de leche, and egg until thoroughly mixed and smooth. Stir in the flour, baking soda, and salt.
Air Fryer: If you want to make cookies in your air fryer, cut pieces of baking parchment large enough to fit in your air fryer basket. Drop several 1 1/2 tablespoon-sized mounds of dough on each piece of parchment, spacing the dough mounds about 2 inches apart. Flatten the mounds slightly with your fingers (to about an inch thick) and sprinkle them with a little sugar. Put one dough-covered parchment sheet in the air fryer basket and cook the dough at 320 degrees for about 10 minutes or until very light brown. Repeat the process with the remaining dough.
Oven: Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and drop 1 1/2 tablespoon-sized mounds of dough about 2 inches apart on the parchment. Flatten the dough slightly with your fingers (to about an inch thick) and sprinkle a little sugar atop the dough. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the cookies for 12-13 minutes or until lightly browned. Rotate the cookie sheet mid-way through the cooking time for more even baking. Let the cookies cool a few minutes before removing them from the cookie sheet to cool completely.
How to Make Dulce de Leche
Pour a can (14 ounces or so) of sweetened condensed milk into a large microwave-safe bowl. Cook the sweetened condensed milk on medium/50 percent power for 4 minutes, stirring halfway through the time. Stir again. Cook the sweetened condensed milk for about 10 minutes more on medium-low/30 percent power or until thick and caramel-colored. During that final cooking time make sure to stir the sweetened condensed milk every two or three minutes (you don't want it to boil over in your microwave, which will make a big mess). Let the dulce de leche cool to room temperature before you use it in the recipe above for cookies.
