Hello Everyone!

Do you want to taste some traditional South American cookies? In this tutorial I am sharing with you a really famous South American recipe, it is not native to my country but it is well known, all the bakeries here sell it!

So.. what exactly is an alfajor?

For those of you who don't know an alfajor (singular) is sandwich made of two soft cookies with a filling in between. A sandwich cookie, made most of the time with "dulce the leche" (a tradicional South American dessert) but if you don't have that were you live you could use caramel or even something like Nutella, it really depends on you.

Step 1: Utensils and Ingredients:

Utensils:

2 large mixing bowls
Electric Whisk
Spatula
Rolling pin
Baking pan

Ingredients:

Corn starch - 2½ cups (300 gr)
All purpose flour - 1 & 2/3 cups (233 gr)
Sugar - 3/4 de cup (150 gr)
Butter - 1¼ cup (254 gr)
5 Egg yolk
Vainilla extract - 1 tbsp
Baking powder - 1 tbsp
Baking soda - ½ tbsp
Dulce de leche / caramel - 1½ cup (525 gr)

Step 2: Making the Cookies:

Photos are in order of steps:

Instructions:

In a large mixing bowl mix the corn starch, flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
In another large bowl beat the butter and sugar for approx. 2 min or until the mixture look smooth.
The mixture should look like this. (see photo number 3)
Add the egg yolk one at a time and mix well.
Add the vainilla extract and mix until well combine. (Mixture should look like photo number 5)
Now add the dry mixture.
When you combine wet and dry ingredients, you should have a crumbly mixture, yet easy to hold together when pressed by hand.
The mixture should look like this. (see photo number 7 and 8)
Divide the mixture in two parts and let it rest for one hour in the refrigerator.

Step 3: Shaping the Cookies:

Preheat the oven at 350ºF (180ºC).

Place the chilled dough on a floured surface and with a floured rolling pin, roll it out to a thickness of ¼ inch.
Cut cookies into even numbers with a round cookie cutter (if you want to make the tradicional alfajor) or use any cooking cutter you like, in my case im using Christmas cookie cutters.
Reuse excess cookie dough to make more cookies.
Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or grease the baking pan.
Take to the oven for 10 - 13 min or until the cookie has a soft golden color.
Let them cool completely.

Step 4: Cookie Sandwich:

Because these cookies are Alfajores, this step cannot be forgotten!

Take one cookie, spread some dulce de leche or caramel of your choice and place on top another cookie to make a sandwich!

Thats it! If you don't want to decorate them as am doing in this tutorial you can stop in this step and just enjoy them. If you want some christmas theme alfajores see next step!

Step 5: How to Decorate!

Since December is just around the corner, I wanted to decorate the cookies with a Christmas theme!

Ingredients:

White chocolate - 300 gr
Small m&m
Food coloring: red and green

So here is how i did it:

Melt the white chocolate in the microwave. Divided into 3 parts, color one part with green food coloring, another with red food coloring, the last part leave it as is. Then put the red chocolate in a plastic bag and cut one tip.
Dip half or all the cookie in the chocolate, use chocolate in the plastic bag to make lines.
Use small m&m for details.
For easy maneuvering, use aluminum foil or parchment paper to let the chocolate solidify on the cookie. When it solidifies, it is very easy to remove the aluminum foil.