Welcome to holiday happiness. Literally, how could you stare at a plateful of these Vanilla Bean Thumbprint Cookies with Dulce de Leche and not be filled with seasonal joy?!! Those snowy little disks with glistening caramel-like centers—you won’t be able to stop yourself from breaking out into song! I certainly can’t stop singing the praises of their creator, Rebecca Firth or of The Cookie Book, her wonderful new-ish cookbook. It’s Famous Friday 24/7 cookie time around here!!

If you love cookies (what a ridiculous statement, of course you do!) you are going to adore this book devoted entirely to the making of them—over 70 different kinds!! There’s even an entire chapter devoted just to chocolate chip versions! I’ve already made her Classic Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip cookies and if it weren’t almost Christmas and the fact that I’ve already got way too many chocolate chip cookies here on the site already, I’d be sharing it with you today—it’s cookie monster amazing!! Seriously! There’s also a brown butter one and an olive oil version I’ve got my eye on too. Then there are chapters for Classic cookies like Snickerdoodles and Oatmeal Raisin, Jazz Hands cookies (aka fancy-pants kinds (like these thumbprints), Dazzling Drop Cookies like Chocolate Pumpkin Swirl, Holiday Exchange Cookies, like Peppermint Bark Shortbread Bites, Get Stuffed Cookies, love the sound of the Holy Sh*t S’mores, and even a chapter on Bar Cookies—I really need an excuse to make these Chocolate Espresso Cream ones. ) If you’re looking for a holiday gift for that baker in your life, The Cookie Book is a guaranteed win!

Now let’s talk about homemade dulce de leche cause it’s what takes these simple butter cookies and elevates them into showstoppers. First off, in case you aren’t properly acquainted—dulce de leche is caramel’s Latin American cousin. And sure, while you could buy it readymade, it is so simple to prepare yourself and so much better tasting, that once you try it this way, there’s no going back. All you need is a can of sweetened, condensed milk and a big pot of water.

Basically, you just simmer a closed can of it for about 3 hours, let cool, pop off that top and tada! You’ve got yourself gobs of luscious, golden dulce de leche! It’s magic!

The cookies come together easily and get that added bit of crunch and flavor from a roll in vanilla sugar.

What’s that you ask? Vanilla sugar?? Yup, that’s right. Vanilla sugar is sugar that has been infused with vanilla beans so that whatever you use that sugar in or on, gets an intense shot of amazing vanilla flavor. You can make it quickly by whizzing vanilla bean seeds with sugar in a food processor, or you can be a nerd like me, who keeps a mason jar in the pantry with sugar and old vanilla bean pods in it so that I always have vanilla sugar at my fingertips! Lol!

Either way, once you’ve rolled the little dough balls in the vanilla sugar, you poke your thumb into the middle of them, one by one, so that each one gets a nice little well in the center. It’s sort of like food meets play dough art project!

After a short stint in the freezer or fridge, you bake ‘em up and then use the round end of a wooden spoon to deepen the holes a bit more, right after baking.

Once the cookies have cooled, you dust them with powdered sugar. So pretty and wintery but you’re not done yet.

No sir! Finally, you get to fill them with a little dollop of that sinfully good homemade dulce de leche! I won’t tell if you swipe a taste or two!

In every bite, you get the perfect mix of tender, buttery cookie, sweet powdered sugar and gooey, rich dulce de leche! It’s truly cookie heaven!

They’d be amazing on any holiday cookie platter—they’ve definitely got that ooh and aah factor. And judging by how these are disappearing around here, there won’t be many leftovers. My advice—make sure you put a few aside for yourself!

Okey-dokey, time to wrap things up. Hope you’ve got a fun and delicious weekend coming up. I have a room waiting to be painted and a weekend of house stuff and child collecting to be done (though not necessarily in that order and some holiday shopping to do too. Going to be a busy one for sure. Stay safe and warm and I’ll see you next week with some more seasonal favs and a few normal recipes too!xoxo

The Cookie Book’s Vanilla Bean Thumbprint Cookies with Dulce De Leche-Famous Fridays

Makes 35 cookies

Prep Time for Dulce De Leche: 3 hours, plus cooling time; Prep Time for dough: 15 minutes, plus 30 minutes chilling time; Bake Time: 15-18 minutes; Assembly Time: 10 minutes. The easiest way to do this all is to make the dulce de leche the day before (or even a week before) and then just shape, bake and fill the cookies whenever you’re ready.

Ingredients

For the Dulce De Leche

One 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

For the Vanilla Sugar

½ cup sugar
½ vanilla bean

For the Cookies

16 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk, room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped out, pod reserved and added to container with vanilla sugar
2 ⅓ unbleached, all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon sea salt
Powdered sugar for confectioners’ sugar

The Recipe

1. To make the Dulce de Leche: Take the label off the can of condensed milk and put the can in a large deep pot. Add enough cold water so that it cover the can by 2 inches and bring to a boil. Then turn down the heat so that the water is simmering and cook for another 3 hours. Check every 30 minutes and add more water as necessary to keep that 2 inch gap above the can. Use tongs to remove the can from the pot (it will be hot!!) and let it come to room temperature. When it’s fully cool (this will take several hours), open the can and you will have yourself perfectly rich and gooey dulce de leche! You can either use right away or store in an airtight container in the fridge for a few weeks.

2. To make the Vanilla Sugar: Place the sugar in the bowl of the food processor. Cut the vanilla bean down the middle and scrape out the seeds into it. Run the machine for about 20 seconds. Place half of the sugar in an airtight container with the pod (I recommend a glass mason jar) and store. This way you’ll have vanilla sugar whenever you want it—it lasts forever. Place the remaining sugar in a shallow bowl and set aside.

3. To make the Cookies: Line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

4. Use an electric mixer to beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed for about 4 minutes, until light and smooth, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add in the egg yolk, milk and vanilla bean seeds and beat well again, scraping down as needed. Don’t worry if the mixture appears curdled.

5. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the butter mixture and beat on low speed until the dough comes together, about 1 minute. Then roll tablespoon-sized balls of dough out and place them on the prepared trays. Roll each of the balls into the vanilla sugar, coating well. Place back on the baking sheet and use your thumb to press down into the center of each one, to make a little well in each cookie. If there is any cracking, just pinch them together gently. Space the cookies out about 2 inches between each other cause these spread a little. Now place the trays in the freezer for 30 minutes or the fridge for 1 hour.

6. While the cookies are chilling, preheat oven to 350ºF. Bake one batch at a time for about 12-15 minutes, just until you see them getting golden brown around the bottom edges. As soon as you remove them from the oven, use the rounded end of a wooden spoon to press down in the centers and make the wells deeper as they spread out a bit when baking. Then transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack to finish cooling completely. Bake the other batch. When all the cookies have cooled, sift powdered sugar over them and put about 1 teaspoon of the dulce de leche in the center of each cookie.

7. Store cookies in an airtight container in a single layer as the dulce de leche will never entirely harden, but the cookies will last at least a week at room temperature. Also, you will definitely have leftover dulce de leche. Store in the fridge and drizzle over ice cream, yogurt or anything you can dream up!

Enjoy!

Note: Recipe adapted from The Cookie Book by Rebecca Firth. I needed to bake these for about 6 minutes longer.