Alfajores are popular in Colombia as well as other parts of South America. I don’t love to bake but alfajores are my favorite cookies and I just had to make them for my recipe blog. They are delicious!
INGREDIENTS
(ABOUT 17 COOKIES)
3 Cups all-purpose flour
1 pound butter, room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
11/4 cup powdered sugar, divided
1 cup cornstarch
1 cup arequipe or dulce de leche
½ cup sweetened flaked coconut
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F
2. In a large bowl mix the butter and 1 cup of powdered sugar.
3. Add the flour, corn starch and vanilla extract then mix with your hands into well combined.
4. Knead together to form a soft dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and knead for about 2 minutes. Roll out to about ¼ inch-thick and cut out the cookies with a round cookie cutter.
6. Place them on a floured cookie sheet and bake for about 10 – 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on a rack for 10 minutes. In a small plate, place the flaked coconut and set aside.
7. Spread arequipe or dulce de leche on each cookie then put together two cookies, making a sandwich with the arequipe in the middle of the two cookies. When you put the cookies together you’ll want some arequipe to come out of the sides. Take the plate with coconut and cover the edges of each alfajor cookie with it, rolling the cookie edge in the flaked coconut.
8. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar and enjoy.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
These are scrumptious! Yum!
This looks great! The coconut kind of ties it together.
Alfajores are my favorite cookie too. We have a wonderful Peruvian Bakery here, we are so lucky.
LL
I love these! I first tried them in a peruvian restaurant. I got the recipe off from the website of the cookbook Art of the Peruvian Cuisine–DISASTER. They were dry and crumbly. Even though I wasted food that time, I will try your recipe!
MMMMMMM…I love these! Delicioso!!!
I am not too fond of cookies, But these sound really cool. The coconut flakes on them look angelic.
Beautiful cookies I’m trying them for sure, it’s with everything I love. Coconut and doce de leite. Hum, hum, hum.
Thank you all for your comments!
I love Alfajores.
Those look really bad for me and really yummy!
These were great! I just made them with my son. My only comment would be that it was not clear in the recipe when you would add the 3 cups of flour. Thanks for the recipe I am sure my Colombian parents will love these!
Claudia- Thank you for your feedback! I will check the directions.
These look yummy! Do you know how long these stay fresh? We would like to give them as wedding favors and need to figure out how far in advance we can make them. Thank you for the great recipe.
Maggie- If I use homemade arequipe, I usually keep them for 2 days, but if you use store bought dulce de leche or arequipe, you can keep them longer.
do u know the alfajores from argentina they dont look like that but do they taste the same?
Lukas- I don’t know if they taste the same!
when do you put the flour in
I made these according to the directions and then threw them in the oven, realizing that I still had the flour sitting on the counter! LOL….needles to say,I ended up with cookie soup and had to start over again! I started sifting in the flour on step 3 when I added the Vanilla Extract and the corn starch. They came out perfect! I hope this helps answers the great”When do I add the Flour” Mystery!!
Delicious! Made them using Christmas cookie cutters, They came out just darling and tasted lovely. My daughter and husband were shoving them in as fast as they could till I slowed them down. My husband had never had these in Bogota, so I got to introduce him to a Colombian food he had never tasted. Pretty funny, considering I’m from New England!
You can scratch the last comment I made…I went ahead and made these and they turned out perfect! I used toasted coconut instead. Erica, thanks so much for such great recipes.
These cookies turned out amazing and were a huge hit at my office! . Delicious!
you should amend your recipe. You don’t have when to add the flour. For a first time baker they will be really confused.
But needless to say great cookies.
I tried this recipe over the weekend and was a hit! Thank you so much for sharing – will be baking these again soon.
they are not from colombia, they are from argentina……
Kari- They are a originally from Argentina,but very popular all over Colombia and South America.
Argentina o Colombia- These cookies make me think of my childhood and thank you for having this amazing website with food de mi patria. Americana pero orgullosa de ser Colombiana ;o) Gracias Erica!
I am actually in Korea and wanting to try to make these, but finding corn starch here is nearly impossible. Do you know if there is something I can substitute corn starch with?