Argentine recipe
How to make Alfajores
Brought from Spain; the Argentine version is now its own classic
Two soft round biscuits sandwiched with dulce de leche. Some are dipped in chocolate; the homemade alfajores de maicena are made with cornflour and rolled in coconut at the edges.
Ingredients
- 200 g cornflour (cornstarch)
- 100 g plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 100 g soft butter
- 80 g caster sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and the grated zest of 1 lemon
- About 250 g dulce de leche
- Desiccated coconut, for the edges
Method
- Beat the butter and sugar until pale, then beat in the egg yolks, vanilla and lemon zest.
- Sift in the cornflour, flour and baking powder and mix to a soft dough. Wrap it and chill it for 30 minutes.
- Heat the oven to 170°C. Roll the dough out to about 5 mm thick and cut rounds about 5 cm across.
- Bake on a lined tray for 10 to 12 minutes. They should stay pale. Let them cool completely: they are fragile while warm.
- Spread dulce de leche on half the biscuits, cover with the rest and roll the edges in coconut.
Made it at home? Tick it off and it goes into your kitchen passport.
The alfajor came to Spain in the time of al-Andalus, and Argentines are among the biggest alfajor eaters in the world: about 6 million a day, according to figures from 2021.
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