Alfajores

Cookies!  Well today, I thought we could make some Peruvian cookies called Alfajores. Alfajores are a traditional confection found in some regions of Spain and then made with variations in countries of Latin America, including Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, and Mexico, after being taken there by the colonists. 
In Spain, there are completely different recipes, but the most traditional contain flour, honey, almonds and several spices, such as cinnamon.  It is most commonly sold around Christmas, but in Medina Sidonia, it is sold year-round.  The real alfajor was made in this town since ancient times, and their development, called alajú, passed from father to son.
In the province of Cuenca, Spain, its still called alajú and is made with almond, honey and figs, all wrapped in a wafer.  Medina Sidonia was the capital of the Arabic world confection, where the alfajor has centuries of history with a recipe that has been transmitted from generation to generation.
In South America, due to the lack of ingredients and habits, alfajores were made totally differently. Nowadays, they are found most notably in Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Paraguay, Chile, Perú and Brazil. In Argentina, its basic form consists of two round, sweet biscuits joined together with mousse, dulce de leche or jam, and coated with black or white chocolate (many alfajores are sold in "black" and "white" flavours) or simply covered with powdered sugar. There is also one variation, called "alfajor de nieve", that instead of having a white or black chocolate coating, it has a "snow" coating consisting of a mixture of egg whites and sugar. Big alfajores, with 25, 30 or even 40 cm diameter, are consumed as desserts, shared among many people. Peruvian alfajores are usually coated in powdered sugar, and are filled with Dulce de leche. Most alfajores come packaged in aluminium foil. In Mexico, they are made with just coconut, and are normally a tri-color coconut confection. In Nicaragua, they follow more in the lines of the Canary island type of alfajores, and are made with molasses and different types of grains, including corn, and cacao similarly to most chocolate bars, though hand-made are just as accessible and generally packaged in plastic wrap or wax paper.  These cookies are delicious, the cookies being a little salty while the filling making the entire snack take on a sweet aspect.  Everyone should try making these easy to make treats.  Of course the dulce de leche is the traditional filling but any kind of jelly or cream can be used.


Recipe:
580 grams cornstarch
284 grams all-purpose flour
6 grams baking powder
8 g salt
454 grams butter, at room temperature
136 grams powdered sugar
60 grams pisco
10 grams vanilla extract


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Sift the cornstarch, flour, baking powder, and salt.  Mix briefly and add the softened butter.  Mix until the butter is incorporated.  Then sift the powdered sugar and add to the mixture with the pisco and the vanilla extract.  Mix until incorporated and portion into 2 equal logs measuring 2 inches wide.Wrap the logs and chill for at least 4 hours.  Cut and bake on a sheet tray with parchment paper, for 15 minutes, turning them halfway.  Once cooled, sandwich some dulce de leche between two cookies and dust with powdered sugar.


Note:  Pisco is a colorless or yellowish-to-amber colored grape brandy produced in winemaking regions of Peru and Chile.  And dulce de leche can be bought but if none is available, you can cook a can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot covered with water for about 4 hours.  But the water level has to be watched constantly, if the water level drops too low there is a danger of the can exploding.


Try these out, especially with a chocolate ganache filling or a raspberry jam filling.  Delicious!
Happy chomps and nibbles!