Alfajores are a traditional dulce de leche sandwich cookie, they're made by baking soft shortbread cookie rounds and using dulce de leche (also called manjar) as a filling to sandwich the cookie together.
How to make Alfajores Cookies
The Ingredients:
2 ½ Cups corn flour
2/3 cup plain flour, plus extra
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 heaped cup caster sugar
Grated zest of ½ lemon
150g unsalted butter at room temperature, chopped
1 egg
2 egg yoks
1tsp vanilla extract
125 ml Dulce de Leche
85g desiccated coconut for rolling
The Method:
Sift corn flour, flour and baking powder together
Using a mortar and pestle, pound the sugar and lemon zest until fragrant. Then using an electric mixer beat butter and sugar until pale and creamy
Add the egg, the yoks and the vanilla and beat to combine
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, folding until a dough forms. Tightly wrap with plastic and place in the fridge of 2 hours
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 180 degrees and line 2 large baking trays
On a lightly floured bench, roll out the dough to a 5mm thickness. Using a 4cm round cookie cutter cute the pastry into circles
Place on the prepared trays, leaving room between them.
Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven. They will still be very soft and allow to cool completely on the trays
Sandwich the flat sides of 2 biscuits together using at least ½ teaspoon of dulce de leche and gently press to seal. Roll the edge of the biscuits in the coconut so it sticks to the dulce de leche
Extra: Dolce De Leche
Ingredients
2x 395g tins sweetened condensed milk
Method
Put unopened tins of condensed milk into a large saucepan. Cover the tins with water. Put on the stove and boil for at least 2 hours, refilling the saucepan with water to cover the tins. Leave to cool in the water. The Dolce de Leche should last in the fridge for at least 2-3 weeks.