Holiday Extra - Desserts

During the year I try to limit my dessert-making because, well, I eat too much of the finished product.  But the holidays are meant for a little indulgence, right? 

Looking back over my experiments in 2011, my favorite new dessert recipe was for alfajores, the Argentinian shortbread cookies with dulce de leche (milk caramel) filling:

http://southamericanfood.about.com/od/snacksstreetfood/r/alfajorpe.htm



I really wanted to share this with my family when I was home in Virginia for Christmas but could not find dulce de leche in the local grocery store.  So I went on-line and discovered the coolest thing ever - you can make milk caramel at home by simmering an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot of water!  It takes 2 hours of simmering, then just let the can cool, open and voila! - beautiful, thick caramel.  Here's a pic in case you don't believe me:

Also, since the UK will be my first country in 2012 I decided to try a recipe for sticky toffee pudding.  This English dessert has gotten quite a bit of buzz this year on the Food Network, etc., and so there are a lot of recipes out there.  I chose this one because it says you can make the cake part in advance, then heat it up with the butterscotch sauce right before serving:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sticky-toffee-pudding-with-butterscotch-sauce-recipe/index.html

The cake contains chopped dates but you would really never know it, the dates seem to disappear in the batter.  And the butterscotch sauce is what makes this dessert awesome!