Dulce de Leche Sandwich Cookies (Casadinhos de Doce de Leite)
It’s cookie time, folks!
I’m sure you’re all baking a lot for the holidays, either to give your baked goods as gifts to your family and friends or to just eat them all by yourself while listening to Christmas carols. No judging here! It’s Christmas after all!
This year I was very honored to participate in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, which “brings together food bloggers from around the world in celebration of all things scrumptious.” This cookie swap not only brings lots of joy to food bloggers but also supports a beautiful cause: the Cookies for Kids’ Cancer.
So, how does this cookie swap thing work? You sign up and receive the address of three other food bloggers to whom you send one dozen homemade cookies each. And then you receive three different boxes of cookies from other food bloggers. So it’s pretty much a big delicious cookie party!
I can’t tell you how happy I was every time I got home and found a package in the mail with cookies inside! I had never received cookies in the mail before. I certainly need to make this into a new tradition! I was also beyond excited every time one of the food bloggers I sent cookies to posted my cookies on Instagram thanking me for them.
When I decided to sign up for the Cookie Swap, I already knew I had to do a Brazilian recipe. Even though my blog is not solely dedicated to Brazilian cuisine, it is still a huge part of who I am as a cook. So I had my mind set on these Dulce de Leche Sandwich Cookies that we call “Casadinhos” (which means “married”) in Portuguese. In Brazil, these cookies are usually filled with guava or dulce de leche. I thought the dulce de leche was more representative of the holidays! :) (Mostly because I usually save my guava recipes for the Summer!)
Before I made the final batch to send to my blogger friends, I made a test batch and brought it to work with me. Oh my… people went crazy for it! Some of them were offering money for these cookies, so I decided that was the recipe I wanted to make for the Cookie Swap. And, as if they were reading my mind, OXO sent me this amazing 8 Piece Baker’s Silicone Decorating Bottle Kit that helped me fill the cookies and were super easy to clean! Thank you, OXO!!!
This recipe is incredibly easy and fast. All you need is butter, sugar, flour and some dulce de leche. Now, hear me out on this… One day I promise I will make a post about how to make dulce de leche from scratch. But I almost never make it, because it takes at least 3 hours! And, honestly, I don’t have 3 hours to spare lately… So I buy the canned one from Nestlé (picture below) and it’s delicious! I literally eat it straight out of the can. If your grocery store doesn’t carry it, Amazon has it here!
If you’re in a hurry and there’s no way you can get your hands on a can of dulce de leche, but you have a pressure cooker, just cook a can of sweet condensed milk (with enough water to cover the whole can) for 1.5 hours. Just wait for it to cool so you can open it, and voila: dulce de leche!!!
Don’t be fooled by how simple these cookies look. They are insanely delicious and also a bit dangerous! They are the type of cookies you won’t stop eating until you see the bottom of the jar/tin. The velvety butter cookies combined with the rich, creamy and sweet dulce de leche make them a very special treat for the holidays!
The cookies bake for about 15 minutes only (just until the bottom starts to become this beautiful golden color and the top is still soft) and they set as they cool. They are very delicate and they melt in your mouth when you bite them. I’m telling you, they are insanely good and I want to dive into a pool of these cookies. (Don’t judge me!)
To make them even more delicious, I roll them in confectioners sugar after I fill them with dulce de leche. But you don’t have to, if you don’t want! You could also roll them in granulated sugar but then they are going to be a tad sweeter!
Enjoy the cookies with coffee – or tea – at anytime of the day. In Brazil they are served during the ‘afternoon coffee’ (our version of the afternoon tea).
This recipe makes 72 butter cookies, that make 3 dozen sandwich cookies. It is perfect for the holidays as one recipe will be enough to gift at least 3 friends.
Christmas is the time to gift our loved ones with beautiful and delicious things! I found these lovely Christmas cookies jars (pictured below) and thought they were perfect to send my cookies for my friend food bloggers. I hope Maegan (The Baker Mama), LeAndra (Love and Flour) and Jenna (To Deliciousness and Beyond) enjoyed them (and the cookies, of course!).
Finally, I need to take a second here to thank Angela & Laura (About a Mom), Amy (What Jew Wanna Eat) and Alicia (Balancing Motherhood) for the delicious cookies they sent me. It’s almost as if they knew when I was having a bad day and magically timed the cookies to arrive and save the day! Ladies, you rock!
And, as promised, the recipe:
Dulce de Leche Sandwich Cookies (Casadinhos de Doce de Leite)
Ingredients
- 1 sticks + 2 Tbsp salted butter (room temperature)
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 (13.4oz) can dulce de leche
- Confectioner's sugar
Instructions
36 Comments on “Dulce de Leche Sandwich Cookies (Casadinhos de Doce de Leite)”
Omg you won’t believe I was thinking to make dulce de leche sandwich cookies this week! haha… These look so good Olivia…I love dulce de leche, super yum! And I need to participate in the food blogger cookie swap next year for sure, sounds like a fun event! :)
PS: The cookie jars are gorgeous, where did you get them from?
LOL! You’re my Indian twin sister, Manali! We think alike!
I got the jars from Michaels. :) And yes, you have to participate next year. I hope I get to receive cookies from you. Your cookies always look amazing!!!
Thank you for these delicious cookies, Olivia. They were out-of-this-world good. Happy holidays!
These cookies look amazing, Olivia! I love the dulce de leche flavor. Such a creative cookie for the holidays!
Ha!! So funny! I made Alfajores for my FB cookie swap!! These are almost the same but have cornstarch instead of only all-purpose flour, so they’re more crumbly :P They come from Spain but are very popular in Argentina (and in my country, Honduras)
blog post coming soon but check out the video recipe ;) http://bit.ly/GingerAlfajores
Yours look amazing by the way! I love how we share similar traditions! :)
I just love dulce de leche! These cookies sound delicious Olivia. I would have loved to receive these in the mail : )
Your cookies sound delicious Olivia. Thanks for the shout out for my cookies. Glad they arrived safe. I LOVE the way you packaged your cookies. So cute!!
I LOVE DULCE DE LECHE COOKIES AND THESE LOOK FANTASTIC! CAN’T WAIT TO MAKE THEM! THIS COOKIE SWAP SOUNDS FUN, I HAVE TO PARTICIPATE NEXT YEAR :)
Thank you, Mira!!! Yes, you have to participate next year!! :)
I just love these cookies especially because the dulce de leche. I also love these cookies with guava too. I am glad I am here in Brazil so I can try all these delicious Brazilian recipes ;-)
You’re lucky! :P I can’t wait to go and eat it all!
Oh my! These cookies sound amazing!! I’ve never had them but now I want them!! I love the cookie swap I keep reading about…I would love to to participate next year, too!
Yes, you should totally do it! Maybe we will send cookies to each other! :)
Hi I tried making these but my dough didn’t form and it was crumbly! Can you tell me what I did wrong thank you
Hi Valene! The dough isn’t a very cohesive dough, as the cookies are very light. However, if you can get it to be smooth to form the balls, try adding some more butter until you get the right consistency!
Hi Olivia, i tried the recipe and had the same problem as Valene. I added butter but it ended up being crispy not soft
I added 2 more tbsp butter and it came out well.
These measurements did not work for me. I had to use 2 total sticks to make it a smooth dough. Really hoping they turn out okay!
I’m trying to make these but it’s crumbly and I can’t roll it to make it doughy the recipe calls for one stick and 2 tablespoons of butter is it supposed to be two sticks
Hi Eliset, I usually use only 1 stick plus 2 Tbsp. Try adding some more butter until you reach the consistency to form a smooth dough. The dough isn’t supposed to be too dense, as the cookies are light, but it has to be smooth so you can form the little balls. Let me know if adding more butter works. Since you’re not the first person to tell me you’re not getting the dough right, I will review this recipe and make changes if necessary!
I couldn’t get the dough to form with that recipe either. I ended up using 1 stick and 5 tbsps of butter and it came it out good!
I also had difficulty with the dough. Too crumbly and wouldn’t really come together. I couldn’t roll it or form the dough balls very well. I tried adding butter but it didn’t help. I followed recipe exactly.
I tried this recipe for a Christmas cookie. I didn’t have and Dulce de Leche so I made some easily by taking two cans of sweetened condensed milk and pouring them into mason jars (I used two different sized jars, I should have used three of the same) and submerging them in water in my crockpot on low for 8-10 hours. The small jar was perfect consistency, the big jar was too soft at room temperature and was too messy on the cookie.
So anyway, the rating is based off my assumption that the amount of butter listed worked for Olivia. For my living conditions and humidity, I needed to add another 1/4 C of butter (half a stick) per recipe. I doubled the recipe and added a whole stick (1/2C). Using the recipe as it is written left me with crumbles that wouldn’t form a dough. I also then had to chill the dough for about 20 minutes to allow for easier manipulation.
I thought the cookies were good as is, but lacked a depth of flavor, which could have been caused through my cheating version of Dulce de Leche. A small sprinkling of coarse sea salt on the sandwich before closing them up solved that beautifully.
I have been storing these in the freezer to keep them set up, help them last longer, and because I like them that way! They are amazingly addictive. Also, I made mine smaller to make them bite size. Perfect!
Should I use all purpose flour or self-rising flour?
All purpose flour! :)
I’d like to try these cookies with Guava. Can I use guava paste straight from the can?
Also, If I should use Dolce de leche ( I’ve found it in Walmart!), is it used straight from the can? Wouldn’t that be quite runny and ruin the sandwich cookie?
Make sure you get the CARAMEL Dolce de leche – Carnation also make a can that is just condensed milk and that is not thick enough. The Caramel is like frosting and I put it into a piping bag with the rose tip and it worked just fine and the result was a very pretty finish to the filling.
If I wanted to add a little bit of vanilla how do you think that would turn out ? -joy
Hi Joy, I think they’ll turn out fine. You can always add a little extra flour if you’re concerned the dough is not solid enough. :)
I just made a batch of these and they are delicious. However, I needed to add more butter, as the dough just would not come together. For the recipe above I used 2 sticks of butter and they turned out just beautifully and the dough was easy to work with.
Hey! I need to second the “crumbly dough” comments. I was having a hard time pulling the dough together, so I ended up using 2 sticks of butter, which was fine. All I wanted to add was that I believe the dough wasn’t coming together because I live in Chicago, where the humidity is pretty low. Thanks for the recipe!
I also had dough so crumbly it wouldn’t form. I looked at other recipes that called for egg yolks. I added one, which helped the consistency, but did not fully incorporate. Next time I will try more butter. Cookies stayed round, so I flattened them with a glass after they came out of oven. I am waiting until they cool enough so dulce they Leche doesn’t melt. Hoping powdered sugar will still stick.
Like others have mentioned, I also had crumbly dough. I added another stick of butter (an equivalent to 1 cup of butter total), and the dough turned out perfectly. I also added 1-2 teaspoons of lime zest, which I HIGHLY RECCOMEND. The lime makes the dough smell so fresh. And when baked, the tart flavor of the cookie blends so heavenly with the sweet and creamy dulce de leche.
I also rolled out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick and used a small 1-inch cookie cutter, as opposed to making small balls of dough. My cookies took 12 minutes to reach perfection where they are just slightly golden at the bottom. I was able to make 20-24 whole cookies total.
I made these cookies 3 times this month already for my friends and family. I reccomend everybody to try this out! Your friends and family will LOVE you!
I made these cookies for a charity bakesale. Everyone love it. At first, they thought it was macarons. Lol. My kids also love it. It’s so easy to make with only 5 ingredients and I added more butter because it was still crumbly. Other than that its yummy!
I want to make these but with the guava filling instead… do you have or know of a recipe for that? Thank you
My dough wouldn’t come together with just 1 stick and 2 tablespoons of butter. I had to add a whole other stick. I know you got a lot of comments about this already but just wanted to add…might be worth it to add a note to the recipe about this issue. Other than that the cookies were supremely delicious and a BIG HIT!