26 cookie halves -> 13 alfajores

 

120g butter (room temperature)  

80g sugar

2 egg yolks

vanilla extract

190g flour

8g baking powder

a pinch of salt

30g cocoa

 

+100g dulce de leche (or caramel if don’t have dulce de leche)

+45g dark chocolate

Munching alfajores was one of the loveliest dessert-related events in Argentina. I did have them in Uruguay and Chile, but Argentine alfajores had something special, with the special Argentine dulce de leche... As I miss my friends and Argentina very much, I asked my dear friend Nuria to give me the recipe. You can find Nuria and her bakes here and here – she is a very talented pastry chef!

And then, as Nuria and I are so much alike, even the recipe is listed in a simple manner that I try to use, too (I translated it and adapted it from Spanish).

Mix the butter and the sugar; add the yolks and some vanilla extract drops; continue to stir.

In a separate bowl, measure the flour, add the baking powder, the salt, and the cocoa. Mix the dry ingredients into the previous wet ones. You may even knead a bit, not too much, though, and proceed with one of the following two techniques.

Either roll out the dough and cut round cookies by using a 6cm cutter or shape balls that you crush and cut out round cookies (Nuria uses the latter technique – I tried them both out).

Bake in the preheated oven, at 180°C, for 6-7 minutes, on a baking tray lined with baking parchment, and then leave the cookies cool.

Remember, as they cool, the cookies will harden, so don’t worry if they seem too soft when you take them out of the oven. In terms of texture, alfajores are not very crunchy, anyway.

Spread dulce de leche on two halves and sandwich them together; do so for all the halves; these sandwich cookies are actually alfajores.

As a version, I wanted to chocolate-glaze them and I tested my technique on two alfajores (the amount of chocolate listed will suffice only for two – I used chocolate with 54.5% cocoa solids). I melted 30g chocolate on a steam bath; I then removed it from the heat and added the remaining 15g of chocolate, continuously mixing, until this, too, melted. This way, I tempered it, keeping it glossy and crunchy.

 

I tasted the butter, the notes of the dulce de leche and I returned to Argentina while I savoured them. Son geniales, mi Nu!