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You are here: Home / Archives for Cookies

COOKING UP A STORM AND ON THE HUNT FOR VINTAGE

March 1, 2020 by Sarah Kline 6 Comments

stew Alison Roman

There’s been a lot of cooking — and vintage hunting — the past two weeks….

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Filed Under: Cookies, Favorite Portland Outings, Goodwill & Thrift Stores, Incorporating Vintage at Home in Portland

JOY JUNCTION

November 17, 2019 by Sarah Kline 18 Comments

Porter

Here’s one gift David’s cancer has given me….

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Filed Under: Cookies, Eat Portland

SEATTLE, STAYCATION AND LEMON WHITE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

July 12, 2019 by Sarah Kline 17 Comments

Lemon WHite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Often times a deadline puts everything into laser-like focus….

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Filed Under: Cookies, Dessert, Eat Portland, Favorite Portland Outings, My Favorite Things, Pure Portland, Recipes

THE WAITING GAME

May 27, 2019 by Sarah Kline 22 Comments

Scones

Those who know me are aware of how much I love games of all kinds. I’m hyper-competitive and I live for the thrill of winning.

Turns out though that there’s one game out there that I loathe-– and I’m particularly ill-suited for.

Yep, the waiting game….

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Filed Under: Cookies

CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES

February 27, 2019 by Sarah Kline 5 Comments

Ina Garten Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Hey kids! Fancy something sweet?…

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Filed Under: Cookies

FOOD LOVER’S HOLIDAY

January 4, 2019 by Sarah Kline 7 Comments

Red Velvet Crinkles Cookies

I don’t know about you, but my holiday was full of everything delicious….

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Filed Under: Cookies, Holidays, Incorporating Vintage at Home in Portland, Parties, Sandwiches

IN PRAISE OF PUMPKIN PATCHES

October 23, 2018 by Sarah Kline 6 Comments

Pumpkin Patch

I’ll admit it — I’m a sucker for farms and pumpkin patches….

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Filed Under: Cookies, Favorite Portland Outings

PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH COOKIES

September 14, 2018 by Sarah Kline 6 Comments

homemade nutter butters peanut butter sandwich cookies

All the kids are back at school.

The weather is taking a turn, and the leaves are falling with an increasing frequency and fervor.

vintage sign fall is here

And with time on my hands and a sweater now wrapped over my shoulders, my thoughts naturally turn to baking….

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Filed Under: Cookies

BLOCK PARTY, FOOD SWAP AND SUMMER HOSPITALITY

August 7, 2018 by Sarah Kline 4 Comments

Portland PDC Food Swap Sauvie Island

In many places, summer is when people leave town to enjoy greenier, sandier pastures….

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Filed Under: Cookies, Dessert, Eat Portland, Egg, Favorite Portland Outings, Grocery Shop Portland, Pure Portland

ALFAJORES (DULCE DE LECHE COOKIES) AND SUMMER SWEETNESS

July 30, 2018 by Sarah Kline 10 Comments

Alfajores Dulce de Leche Cookies

It’s been said that Portland has the best summer weather in the country.

That might be true. It’s usually 80-ish during the day and holds a gentle heat through the evening with the respite of cool happening later in the night, but lately it’s been super hot. Maybe it’s global warming, but like so many areas in the country, we’ve been living in 90 degrees plus.

Those temperatures surges, however, are tolerable with time-appropriate cold beverages like blackberry smoothies

Blackberry Milkshakes Smoothies

or a bourbon rocks

cocktails at rockaway beach house rental beach getaway

and central air-conditioning makes everything better so we’ve been inside a little more than usual.

There’ve been more birthday celebrations.

Charlotte Birthday

Charlotte turned 14 and we made a day out of it.

Charlotte Birthday Plate and Flowers

We hung out a good part of the day with our favorite neighbor and her adorable baby.

Charlotte and Emilia Birthday

We window shopped around Division

Collage Washi Tape

and had a late breakfast bite at Little T American Baker, one of my favorite bakeries in town.

Little T American Bakery

Little T American Baker

Little T American Bakery

We then returned to my neighbor’s oversized backyard with a fantastic new play structure that came all the way from one of my favorite areas of the country — Rockport, Maine.

Birthday Picnic

We picnicked (one of my favorite verbs ever), enjoying this tomato-cucumber-Rainier cherry beauty

Tomato Salad Picnic

and pizza from Baby Doll.

Baby Doll Pizza Portland

Charlotte opened some presents and we just gabbed for hours.

Charlotte Birthday Picnic and Present

Night time was all about treats of her choosing: Steak Frites for dinner and a family movie (a rom-com, natch).

Grilled Steak Charlotte Birthday

Happy birthday, my beautiful daughter.

You are my sunshine. My cashmere poncho. My Yukon Gold potatoes drizzled with truffle oil.

Charlotte at Olive and June

What else do we have to show for ourselves?

Emilia and Porter

There’s been other fun stuff going on around here —  most of it food-related and enjoyed while binge-watching in air-conditioned comfort.

Breakfast sandwiches.

Egg Sausage Sandwich

Pip’s Donuts.

Pip's Donuts

Take out pizza from Ranch PDX.

Ranch Pizza Portland

Oversized Sharp Cheddar and Pesto Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (every one should be at least a foot long!).

Grilled Cheese with Pesto

And tomatoes around the clock.

Breakfast.

hummus on walnut bread with tomatoes

Lunch.

Tomato Salad with Avocado

And dinner.

Salmon Steelhead BLT

Who doesn’t love a scrumptious BLT — especially when the bacon is this insanely good, the steelhead roasted with lemon, and the tomatoes this luscious?

Salmon BLT Steelhead

There’s been one more fun discovery around here.

Alfajores.

Not familiar with this cookie (famous throughout Spain and Latin Amercia)? They are a lovely, crumbly, shortbread-ish butter cookie that are filled with homemade dulce de leche.

I was browsing through some cookbooks lately looking for a new treat for us and I stumbled upon this book — one I haven’t cracked open in a long time.

cookie cookbook chewy gooey crispy crunchy

The Alfajores recipe was the first one I noticed and I instantly remembered this cookie from my time in San Francisco. I used to run a food and wine shop there (located on the top floor of Neiman Marcus) and I was able to buy any local product I wanted. I sold an excellent version of this cookie at my bake shop and customers would come in and buy dozens of Alfajores at a time (one time a woman bought a couple hundred dollars of them and then overnighted them to friends).

This cookie inspires that kind of fanatical devotion, and I was eager to make them for the first time.

The recipe for the dough is simple enough, and it pulled together in minutes.

Alfahores Cookies

I rolled the dough out and then cut into dainty scalloped circles and put them back in the fridge to keep cold (so they wouldn’t spread too much while baking) and then set out to make the dulce de leche.

Alfajores Cookies

I make homemade caramel often enough that I wasn’t daunted by the process, but I either made a mistake or the recipe was a bit of wonky. My dulce de leche was too thin (despite cooking it 50% longer than maximum suggested time) and lacked the requisite deep caramel-y goodness (or maybe my milk didn’t have the requisite fat?). I even cooked it a little longer, still hoping to give it both an increased thickness and an enhanced flavor but no luck.

Stuck with this sub-par filling, Charlotte tasted it and recommend I cook it down with caramel added to it,  and that’s exactly what it needed. The end result was sticky and caramelly and intensely fragrant and the perfect density for this cookie. (Big props to C on that one).

I baked off the cookies, let them cool and then filled them with the filling and returned them to the fridge (for some reason my rendition tasted better chilled than room temperature).

The cookies, originally crisp post-bake, softened considerably in the fridge with the filling inside, and we loved them.

Alfajores Dulce de Leche Cookies

Obviously you can choose the diameter/portion size. I opted to go-big-or-go-home sized (the size of a slider?) but mini ones would work really well, too (especially since they’re doubled up with a rich filling inside).

Do I recommend this recipe? Yes, but with the caveat that there might be a better one out there (and I know that there are far better bakers than I). I’ve already heard from Instagrammers about this cookie, and I’m hoping to get more hints along the way.

As we speak I’m waiting for a recipe from my stepson’s lovely girlfriend Tessa (her family is on Team Alfajore Obsessed) who always uses her Grandma’s recipe (with part shortening/part butter and her Dulce de Leche uses condensed milk.)

I mean, isn’t this a cookie worth perfecting?

Alfajores Dulce de Leche Cookies

(By the way, are you on IG? If so, say hi to me there and tag me with things you’re cooking. Find me on Instagram @portlandsampler.)

I’m not going to include the filling recipe from this book since I either goofed it or its amounts were off; either way, a simple Google search should do or you could even pick up a toothsome variation at TJ’s or at better grocery stores. I think I may even research Instapot and condensed milk?

Either way, find a way to include this delectable sandwich cookie in your life. And in the lives of those you most care about.

My little friend loved his micro-cookie so much he didn’t want to surrender the plate.

Porter with cookie plate

Your waistline might be sorry you discovered this gem– but your inner glutton will say hallelujah.

Alfajores Dulce de Leche Cookies

Enjoy, friends!

ALFAJORES (DULCE DE LECHE COOKIES)
 
Print
Prep time
15 mins
Cook time
15 mins
Total time
30 mins
 
First off, this cookbook is wonderful. Buy it. And if you do, let me know if you have better luck than I do with the filling. Secondly, this cookie is a charmer. I see it going into heavy rotation around here: intensely fragrant, sinfully decadent and just different enough to be highly memorable.
Author: Alice Medrich
Recipe type: cookie
Serves: 32 sandwich cookies
Ingredients
  • 2¼ C. unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. cream of tartar
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • ¼ tsp. salt
  • 8 Tbs. unsalted butter, very soft
  • 1 C. sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 Tbs. brandy or rum
  • 1 C. Dulce de Leche, homemade or purchased
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds in the oven.
  2. Combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and mix together thoroughly with a whisk or fork.
  3. With a large spoon in a medium mixing bowl or with a mixer, mix the butter with the sugar until smooth and well blended but not fluffy. Add the egg and brandy and mix until smooth. Add the flour mixture and mix until completely incorporated.
  4. Shape heaping teaspoons of dough into 1 inch balls. (or, on a lightly floured surface, shape dough into a square and cut into 8 strips and then cut each strip into 8 pieces to make a total of 64 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a 1 inch ball.)
  5. For miniature cookies, shape level teaspoons of dough into 96 smaller balls.
  6. Place the cookies 2 inches apart on lined or ungreased pans nad and flatten to about ½ inch thick.
  7. Bake for 14 to 16 minutes for larger cookies or 12 to 15 minutes for miniature cookies, until the edges are lightly browned. Rotate the pans from top to bottom and from front to back halfway through the baking time.
  8. For lined pans, set the apn or just the liners to cool; for unlined pans, use a metal spatula to transfer the cookies to racks. Cool the cookies completely before storing or filling.
  9. Sandwich the cookies with a generous dab of cooled or room temperature dulce de leche.
  10. The cookies will soften as they stand. They are good crunchy or soft. May be stored in an airtight container for at least a week.
  11. (We liked them best cold, straight from the fridge).
3.2.2925
 

 

 

 

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Hi, I'm Sarah Kline. Former cook at Greens. Restaurant reviewer and food columnist for San Francisco Examiner. Copywriter/recipe writer for Williams Sonoma. Private cooking teacher.  Flash forward.  -> Read More

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