Alfajores
Alfajores contain more cornflour than wheat flour, and that is not economy but design. Starch forms no gluten, so the cookie has nothing holding it together — it collapses in the mouth almost immediately. That is deliberate: the biscuit is meant to disappear and leave the caramel behind. An all-flour cookie would be hard and would compete with the filling.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Dough 20 min
- Chilling 60 min
- Baking 24 min
- Cooling 20 min
- Assembly 18 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneCream the butter with icing sugar
Beat the soft butter with the icing sugar for 3 minutes, until pale. Icing sugar, not granulated — crystals cannot dissolve in a dough this low in moisture and stay perceptible in the finished cookie.
Ingredients: 250 g cornflour · 150 g plain flour · 200 g butter · 100 g icing sugar · 3 pcs egg yolks · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Add yolks, zest and dry ingredients
Beat in the yolks one at a time with the lemon zest and vanilla, then the sifted cornflour, flour and baking powder. Mix until the dough starts gathering into clumps and stop — it should be crumbly and short, not smooth.
Ingredients: 250 g cornflour · 150 g plain flour · 200 g butter · 100 g icing sugar · 3 pcs egg yolks · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Crumbly and very pale — that is cornflour dough.Chill for an hour
Press into a disc, wrap and chill for 60 minutes. A dough this rich in butter and starch is soft when warm and crumbles as you cut it — an hour in the fridge makes it manageable.
Ingredients: 250 g cornflour · 150 g plain flour · 200 g butter · 100 g icing sugar · 3 pcs egg yolks · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Roll to 6 mm, no thinner
Roll between two sheets of paper to 6 mm and cut 4–5 cm rounds. A thinner cookie dries out and cracks under the weight of the caramel; an alfajor should be visibly thicker than an ordinary shortbread.
Ingredients: 250 g cornflour · 150 g plain flour · 200 g butter · 100 g icing sugar · 3 pcs egg yolks · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Six millimetres — thinner ones crack under the filling.Bake 12 minutes without browning
Bake at 170°C for 11–12 minutes, in batches — the rounds fill two trays, so about 25 minutes in all. The cookies must stay completely pale; at most the bases may turn golden. A browned alfajor is a dry one — there is almost no water in this dough, so colour only appears once it is already overbaked.
Ingredients: 250 g cornflour · 150 g plain flour · 200 g butter · 100 g icing sugar · 3 pcs egg yolks · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Cool on the tray, do not move them
Leave the cookies on the tray for 20 minutes. Hot, they are so fragile that a spatula breaks them. Only once cool do they gain enough cohesion to be lifted.
Ingredients: 250 g cornflour · 150 g plain flour · 200 g butter · 100 g icing sugar · 3 pcs egg yolks · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Fill and roll the edges
Put a heaped teaspoon of thick dulce de leche on one cookie and press a second on top so the filling comes out evenly all around. Roll that exposed ring in coconut and dust with icing sugar.
Ingredients: 400 g dulce de leche · 80 g desiccated coconut · 20 g icing sugar
The filling emerges evenly — that is what the coconut sticks to.
Before you start
The caramel must be thick
A runny dulce de leche escapes at the sides and the cookies slide apart in the tin. If yours pours off a spoon, reduce it for 10 minutes in a pan, stirring, and cool before using.
Better after two days
Alfajores mature: moisture from the caramel moves into the biscuit and after two days the whole thing is soft and uniform. In an airtight tin they keep for a week.
The chocolate version
Instead of coconut, dip the assembled alfajores in melted dark chocolate. That is how most shop-bought alfajores in Argentina look — and it is the more practical version, since the chocolate seals the cookie and extends its life.
