Alfajores and discoveries

One of the surprise outcomes of the World Cup was that it made me experiment with my baking. It made me research Brazilian recipes and find out more about the kinds of food that they bake. I found lots of caramel, coconut and chocolate desserts. One of the recipes which caught my eye was alfajores. Gorgeous  dulce de leche, book-ended by shortbread biccies.

So much deliciousness!

So I was Googling dulce de leche stockists in Sydney and stumbled across Vivi’s Facebook page.  She’s an Argentinian girl living in Sydney who makes delicious, authentic dulce de leche and other amazing Argentinian foods. I can honestly say this has been my number one food find this year.

I ate one entire jar with a spoon. And I regret nothing.

If you’re looking to buy dulce de leche, contact Vivi via her Facebook page. She’s not only a talented cook, she’s super friendly as well.

Alfajores:

• 125g butter
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 ¼  cups cornflour
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarb
• 4 tbsp milk
• ½ cup dulce de leche

Cream together your butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add in the vanilla and egg yolks and mix well. Add in the cornflour, flour and bicarb, mixing at a slow speed so as not to send the dry ingredients flying everywhere. Mix for 2 minutes, adding the milk in one tablespoon at a time, until the dough is nice and cohesive. You may not need all four tablespoons of milk, so keep an eye on your dough!

Shape your dough into a disc, wrap it in cling wrap and pop it in the fridge for ten minutes.

While the dough is in the fridge, preheat your oven to 180°C and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Grab your dough from the fridge and roll it out to about ½ a centimetre in thickness in between two sheets of baking paper. Using an egg cup, cut out rounds of the dough and place them on your baking trays. You should end up with 40 individual biscuits, which will give you 20 alfajores at the end.

Pop your biccies into the oven for 12-14 minutes, until they’re slightly browned. Leave them to harden up for two minutes before gently transferring them to a cooling rack.

While the biccies are cooling, put your dulce de leche in the fridge to firm up slightly.

When your biscuits are completely cool, grab your dulce de leche from the fridge. Spread about a third of a tablespoon onto the bade of 20 of the biscuits, and top them with the remaining biscuits.

Take care not to overload the biscuits with dulce de leche, as it will squidge out as you’re eating them. (I don’t really see this as a problem, there are worse things in life than too much dulce de leche.)

Eat straight away, or place in the fridge until you serve them.