churro-pretzel dulce de leche cookies
baking buddies: the beginner version | browning butter, measuring & folding ingredients + making simple frostings.
hi baking buddies! 🍰
as the first recipe in baking buddies: the beginner, we’re starting with something you might have already made before — cookies. but not any cookies, no no no. these are browned butter, churro-pretzel stuffed dulce de leche cookies! with frosting (optional)!!!!
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this week we’re getting practice in weighing and measuring our ingredients and browning butter. we’ll also be following baking times and using our nose and eyes to give us visual clues while baking, as well as creating a simple frosting.
remember to check the footnotes, and i hope you all enjoy this recipe!
this is my invariable advice to people: learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!
- julia child
churro-pretzel dulce de leche cookies
kitchen scale (or convertor calculator1 + measuring cups if using US standard method by volume)
measuring spoons
sauce pot
large bowl
small bowl x2
plate or small baking sheet
whisk
rubber spatula
plastic bag + rolling pin (for crushing pretzels. you can also just use your hands like i did)
portion scoop (or just your hands to form the cookie dough into balls)
baking sheet
parchment paper
for the cookies
340 g unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
226 g (2 sticks) butter, browned to stage d — see method & footnote
100 g granulated sugar
165 g brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp malted milk powder (optional but highly recommended)
1 can dulce de leche, divided (you’ll have some leftover)
30 g crushed pretzels
1 tsp vanilla extract
for the cinnamon sugar
60 g granulated sugar
5 g cinnamon
for the frosting — optional
60 g dulce de leche
165 g powdered sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp milk
preheat oven to 350F. line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
in a medium saucepan, over medium-low heat, add in 226 g (2 sticks) butter and heat until the milk solids begin to separate and brown at the bottom of the pan, while stirring occasionally with a rubber spatula. allow the butter to brown until it has reached stage d2. immediately remove from heat, transfer to a heat-safe bowl and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes.3
on a plate or small baking sheet, portion out dollops of dulce de leche for the amount of cookies you’ll be making, making sure the dollops are an appropriate size. don’t use the whole can, we’ll need some for later! cover with plastic wrap and set in the freezer while we make the dough.
combine the cinnamon and sugar for the cinnamon sugar mix in a small bowl and set aside.
in a large bowl, combine 100 g granulated sugar, 165 g brown sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tbsp malted milk powder (optional) and 1/4 tsp salt and mix until fully combined.4
add the cooled browned butter into the sugar mixture and mix well until fully combined then, add in both eggs one at a time, mixing until the egg in fully incorporated after each addition.5
to the bowl, add in 340 g flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp baking soda, and 30 g crushed pretzels6 (our dry mixture) and use a rubber spatula to fold7 it into the butter-sugar bowl (our wet mixture) until no flour is visible. be careful to not over-mix, and make sure to scrape down your bowl while folding to incorporate any flour that might have gotten high up on the sides!
portion your cookies into even balls,8 flattening slightly, then place one of the slightly firm dulce de leche mounds inside, covering with more cookie dough.
before baking, roll the stuffed cookie dough balls in the cinnamon sugar, then place on a plate or sheet pan and allow to chill in the freezer for 10 minutes.9
while the cookie dough balls are chilling, preheat oven to 350F.
evenly space cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges have slightly browned and the cookie has set slightly around the edges.
allow to cool COMPLETELY on baking sheet before serving.10
to make the frosting, in a medium bowl, combine all ingredients for the frosting and mix well. spread on top of cooled cookies and garnish with flaky salt and pretzels (optional).
to use the convertor calculator, simply copy and paste the recipe ingredients into the field and convert to metric (grams) — i highly recommend using a kitchen scale if you have it, though.
the butter should smell nutty, and have turned a golden amber color. at this stage, the browned butter can go burnt quickly if you walk away, so take it off the heat! it’s important to note that sometimes the butter can go foamy and become hard to see. if that happens, don’t panic — just remove the pot from the heat, stirring until the bubbles subside. also, make sure to smell your butter if you can’t see. once it smells caramel-y and nutty, you’re good to go.
we want the butter to be cooler in temperature, but still liquid. by using butter in it’s liquid state as opposed to creaming it with the and sugar allows us to prevent air from being incorporated to it, which in the end will give us a chewier, denser cookie.
you can use a whisk and elbow grease, a hand mixer, or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment.
this mixture might look a little bit grainy before adding the eggs, and that’s okay! it’s important to add the eggs in one at a time. by doing this, we allow the proteins in the eggs time to emulsify the mixture, which is why eggs are a common ingredient in things like mayonnaise and other oil based sauces!
to crush the pretzels, you can place them in a ziplock bag and use a rolling pin, or just use your hands like i did!
to fold in ingredients, use your rubber spatula to gently go around the outside of the bowl and cut through the middle of your dry and wet mixture, scooping and “folding” the wet mix over and into the flour. by doing this, we are slowly and gently incorporating our flour into the wet mix. we want to not over-mix our flour as well. if we mix flour too much, we run the risk of developing gluten in the flour (what gives bread it’s chewy texture) which is what we don’t want. it’ll make our cookies tough, and we want the chewiness from our cookies to come from the butter and sugar, not overworking the gluten.
you can use a portion scoop or your hands!
by resting the cookie dough, we chill the butter even more which will help the cookies to not overspread in the oven, as well as develop more flavor in the dough by giving the ingredients time to meld together.
because our bake time is at a base of 10 minutes, allowing the cookies to carry-over cook on the baking sheet gives us a chewy and soft center while the edges remain crisp. this utilizes the excess heat, turned to steam, that gets trapped underneath our cookies on the pan, allowing the residual heat to finish cooking our cookies outside of the oven.