“A poem begins with a lump in the throat” – so said Robert Frost. And while these cookies are far from being a poem, they also began with a similar lump in the throat. Things have not improved that much since my last rabbit post, hence the lack of recipes. But yesterday, after a day of doing pretty much nothing and pleading guilty to myself of intense wallowing, I decided, with the lump in my throat, that it was time to pay my kitchen a much needed visit. And as I could not muster enough energy to chop chocolate or did not feel adventurous enough to bake a cake, I made up a quick-cookie recipe. Now, these are made with pine nut dulce de leche, (or cajeta, as we call it in mexico) but you could use any dulce de leche you can find, and add the pine nuts, previously roasted. Pine nuts have always been, in my opinion, funny tasting. But these cookies, while different from  any others that I’ve tried, proved to be a success with both my mom and my friends.

Here follows the recipe:

Pine nut and dulce de leche cookies
(Own recipe)
Makes aprox. 24 cookies.

1 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 1/2 cups  flour
3 tbsp dulce de leche
2 tbsp roasted pine nuts

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Lightly flour two baking sheets.

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking soda. Separately, using the whisk attachment of your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture. When fully mixed, using a spatula, mix in the dulce de leche and pine nuts, not mixing entirely but leaving it in swirls. Drop by spoonfuls on your cookie sheets and bake until golden brown, about 12 minutes.

These are really good served with vanilla ice cream.