Alfajores are soft, delicate cookies hailing from South America that are sandwiched together with dulce de leche. They are the ultimate cookie sandwich! They can be often found served with a dusting of icing sugar, or the edges rolled in shredded coconut.
The reason these biscuits are so incredibly light and crumbly is due to the addition of cornstarch/cornflour to the cookie dough. This means the dough is delicate, but well worth the effort.
These cookies literally melt in your mouth and the glue that keeps them together without falling apart is the South American spread Dulce de Leche. What a delicious glue! If you can’t find this caramel spread for sale, don’t worry you can make your own here.
I’ve tried a few alfajores from South American cafes before, but nothing comes close to making your own at home. And the fact that they are so easy to make means there is no excuse! Next time I want to experiment and try the coconut and melted chocolate variations – not that I really need an excuse to make more alfajores!
Ingredients
- 3 cups plain flour
- 450 g butter room temperature
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup icing sugar/confectioners sugar +1/4 cup to decorate
- 1 cup corn flour/corn starch
- 1 cup dulce de leche
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
- In a large bowl combine the butter and 1 cup of icing sugar.
- Add in the flour, corn flour and vanilla and mix with your hands until well combined.
- Knead together the mixture to form a soft dough.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap and allow it to stand for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and roll out to about 1/2 cm thick.
- Cut out the cookies with a round cookie cutter and place them on the lined baking tray.
- Bake for about 10 – 12 minutes, remove from the oven and let them cool on a rack for 10 minutes.
- Once completely cool, spread half the biscuits with dulce de leche and gently sandwich the biscuits together.
- Sprinkle them with icing sugar and enjoy!
For some more ideas on what to do with dulce de leche and where to buy it go here. And if you want to make your own then check out my DIY Dulce de Leche recipe.
Have you tried alfajores before?
3 Comments
Eeeek! This recipe looks almost too good to be true, Swah! When I went to Argentina I absolutely fell in love with dulce de leche and alfajores. I remember sitting in the Havanna store in Buenos Aires eating one alfajor after the other and just thinking PLEASE LET THIS NEVER END!! I snuck some back in my suitcase, but they didn’t last long either! Such a shame dulce de leche is so expensive here, but I’m glad it’s becoming more widely available now that it’s becoming popular in foodie culture. Looking forward to checking out more of your dulce de leche recipes now via the link to your other post! x
Alfajores are sooo incredibly addictive. I tried Alfamores and I was immediately smitten. I then had to whip up a batch of my own. Minus the prep time/refrigerating the dough they’re rather easy to make. I also thought it would be much harder to make Dulce de leche as well. Mine definitely didn’t look as good as yours though :)
They are so addictive indeed! And surprisingly simple with a little bit of patience. Glad you enjoyed them Bianca xx