These little alfajore cookies literally melt in your mouth and they are filled with a delicious dulce de leche filling. They’re also super easy to make as they require minimal ingredients that you should have in your pantry! 🙂
Ingredients to make Alfajore Cookies
- butter
- powdered sugar
- egg yolks
- white rum
- vanilla extract
- flour
- cornstarch
- baking powder
- dulce de leche
Equipment:
- stand mixer with the paddle attachment
- bowl
- whisk
- spatula
- baking sheet
- parchment paper
- kitchen scale
Sift together the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder.
Sifting the ingredients ensures there are no lumps of flour or anything else!
Cream together butter and sugar.
This step is super important to create the characteristic melt in your mouth texture of the alfajores! You need to cream the butter and sugar until it looks almost white. This may take 5-10 minutes depending on your mixer. Another tip here is to ensure your butter is at room temperature.
Add egg yolks one at a time.
By adding it one at a time, it ensures that it gets combined evenly. If you overwhelm the butter, it may separate.
Add rum and vanilla extract.
These ingredients add flavour to the alfajores! And don’t worry, the small amount of rum will get cooked off in the oven 🙂
Mix the dry ingredients with the butter mixture.
This step is crucial as you don’t want to overmix, or else it will create a tough cookie! I recommend finishing mixing with your hands or spatula. The dough will be sticky, but after refrigerating it, it will be firm enough to roll out and cut.
Roll out dough until it is 2-3 mm thick and cut out your desired shapes.
I like to use a 4cm round cookie cutter for my alfajores! Try your best to roll out the dough as evenly as possible and keep the surface heavily floured or else it may stick! I like to roll out my dough in batches so it’s easier to work with.
Bake at 300F for 10 minutes
For your first batch, watch your cookies near the end of the cooking time to make sure they don’t burn! I find that these cookies brown really quickly. The perfect cookie will have a slightly browned bottom with a white top.
Let cool and fill with dulce de leche
Once they are done, spread the dulce de leche onto one cookie and sandwich with another one. Since dulce de leche is super sticky, I like to put it into a piping bag and then pipe out the filling, but you could just use a spoon as well!
FAQ
What is dulce de leche?
It is basically condensed milk that is cooked until it caramelizes and develops a rich caramel flavor. You can find this in stores or you can make your own using condensed milk.
Alfajores
Ingredients
- 100 g butter
- 75 g powdered sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon white rum
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 90 g flour
- 160 g cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 can dulce de leche filling
Instructions
- In a medium bowl sift together flour, cornstarch and baking powder. Whisk to combine.
- In a separate bowl, cream together softened butter with powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Butter should almost look white coloured.
- Add egg yolks one at a time to the butter mixture. Mix well after each addition.
- Add the rum and vanilla extract.
- Fold in the flour mixuture into the butter mixture. Mix until just combined. It should come together as a dough.
- On a lightly floured surface, knead dough just until all the flour mixture is combined and dough is smooth.
- Wrap dough in cling film and refridgerate for 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
- Roll out dough on a lightly floured sheet to 2-3mm thick. Cut with a cookie cutter of your choice and place onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or just until they begin to brown on the bottom.
- Let cool and fill with dulce the leche, then sandwich two cookies together. Sprinkle with powdered sugar to serve!
For more sweets and desserts, you can check out my mocha macarons