These Alfajores recipe is easy to make and absolutely delicious. Perfect for snack or dessert with a cup of coffee or tea.
What are Alfajores?
Alfajor is a sugar cookie filled with dulce de leche or arequipe popular in Colombia as well as other parts of South America. Like many Latin recipes this dessert has different variations depending of the country and family. This is my recipe for Alfajores that I grew up eating in Colombia.
Some people like to roll these cookies in shredded coconut, dust them with powdered sugar or both. I usually made them both ways, half a batch with coconut and sugar and the other half with just powdered sugar.
Ingredients to Make this Recipe
You'll find the printable recipe card below with exact amounts and baking directions.
Flour: You need all-purpose flour to make these cookies. Be sure to measure well.
Butter: Unsalted butter at room temperature.
Vanilla Extract: Use a good quality for good flavor.
Powdered Sugar: To make the cookie dough and to dust the cookies before serving.
Cornstarch: The mixture of flour and corn starch makes the cookie melt in your mouth.
Arequipe: Also known as dulce de leche or cajeta for the filling. You can buy it at any supermarket or online. Here is my recipe for homemade dulce de leche if you want to make it from scratch.
Shredded Coconut: This ingredient is optional and you can use unsweetened or sweetened depending on your taste.
How to Make Alfajores
Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large bowl mix the butter and powdered sugar. Add the flour, corn starch and vanilla extract then mix with your hands into well combined. Knead together to form a soft dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 10 to 15 minutes.
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.
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.
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 if using. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar and enjoy.
I don’t love to bake but Alfajores are my favorite cookies and I just had to make them for my recipe blog. These delicate dulce de leche sandwich cookies are delicious!
The cookies are not too sweet, and had a delicate, soft, and crumbly texture. Combined with the dulce de leche filling and powdered sugar on top, it is the perfect balance of textures and flavors.
More Recipes to Make with Dulce de Leche
Chocolate Cake with Dulce de Leche Filling
Dulce de Leche and Coconut Cake Roll
Three Milks Cake with Dulce de Leche
Alfajores Recipe (Dulce de Leche Cookie Sandwiches)
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 1 pound butter room temperature
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 11/4 cup powdered sugar divided
- 1 cup arequipe or dulce de leche
- ½ cup sweetened shredded coconut optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F
- In a large bowl mix the butter and 1 cup of powdered sugar.
- Add the flour, corn starch and vanilla extract then mix with your hands into well combined.
- Knead together to form a soft dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 10 to 15 minutes.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 if using.
- Sprinkle them with powdered sugar and enjoy.
Jenn
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.
Lauren Ochoa
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!
Debony
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!!
bobby
when do you put the flour in
lukas
do u know the alfajores from argentina they dont look like that but do they taste the same?
Erica
Lukas- I don't know if they taste the same!
Maggie
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.
Erica
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.
Claudia
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!
Erica
Claudia- Thank you for your feedback! I will check the directions.
Diana
Those look really bad for me and really yummy!
Erica
Thank you all for your comments!
I love Alfajores.
Anna
Beautiful cookies I'm trying them for sure, it's with everything I love. Coconut and doce de leite. Hum, hum, hum.
Soma
I am not too fond of cookies, But these sound really cool. The coconut flakes on them look angelic.
Sophie
MMMMMMM...I love these! Delicioso!!!
La flaca
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!
Lori Lynn
Alfajores are my favorite cookie too. We have a wonderful Peruvian Bakery here, we are so lucky.
LL
Fearless Kitchen
This looks great! The coconut kind of ties it together.
5 Star Foodie
These are scrumptious! Yum!
Lucy
So good! I made them in my geo class for our country project and they are not good. they are.......THEY ARE DELICIOUS!!!!!!! SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!
Colombia meh homeland
These are so good! For people who have not had Duche de leche, IT IS SO TASTY!!!
Carina
They tradicional from Al-Andalus but is really from Argentina .