Argentine Alfajores

So, I took care of the Christmas gifts for my office coworkers. Now, what to do for the neighbors?

Since the coworkers got salsa, Katie and I thought we'd stick with the Latin theme. Why not Alfajores?

Alfajores are a popular cookie in several South American countries, and the recipe we have comes to us by way of Katie's parents who got it from a woman in Argentina. Katie's dad served an LDS mission to Argentina, and Katie's parents also served a mission together in the same area.

Alfajores are filled with dulce de leche, a caramel spread made from sweetened condensed milk. Doesn't sweetened condensed milk make everything better? You can find dulce de leche in the grocery store, but we prefer to make our own.

We had over fifty deliveries to make. Since each alfajor is made up of two cookies, Katie figures she made sixty dozen cookies. Holy Cow! Good thing baking is like therapy for us. But, the cookies really are easy to make, so it goes fast.

And, the cookies are best eaten after a day or two. The dulce de leche softens up the cookies. Yum to the max!

To make things even more festive, we used

food coloring to color the dough red and green.

I'm not a huge coconut fan, so we left it off.

 

Alfajores
Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
  
• 2 cups flour
  
• ½ cup sugar
  
• Shredded coconut
  

Heat oven to 350˚. Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Roll dough ¼ inch thick on lightly floured surface. Cut into 1 ½ inch circles. Bake 10-12 minutes on ungreased cookie sheet until set but not brown. Let cool. Spread filling on the bottom side of one cookie. Place another cookie on the filling creating a sandwich with bottom sides of cookies together. Lightly spread more filling around the edge of the cookie and roll in shredded coconut.

Dulce de Leche (filling)

Ingredients:

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
  

Place unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a large pan and cover with water. Boil for 3-4 hours making sure that can stays covered with water. Cool.