Alfajores de Maicena are indulgent shortbread cookies from Latin America. Buttery shortbread is sandwiched together with dulce de leche, then rolled in coconut.
Surprisingly this is not a complicated recipe, which has incredibly delicious and impressive results. A simple shortbread recipe teamed with my even simpler dulce de leche recipe makes for pure eating joy.
These melt in your mouth cookies filled with dulce de leche are delicious any time of the year. But did you know that alfajores cookies are often served as part of Chile's Christmas celebrations? A yummy recipe worth keeping up your sleeve for the silly season.
Sara xxx
Ingredients
- Baking powder: Gives the cookies a lighter texture.
- Egg yolk: Adding this along with a whole egg makes for a richer shortbread.
- Egg: A binding agent, go for fresh and free-range eggs.
- Vanilla Extract: Use good quality natural vanilla extract/essence, not the fake stuff.
- Cornflour: Or cornstarch, this is what gives the shortbread cookies their melt in your mouth texture.
- Caster Sugar: Also known as superfine sugar. Finer textured sugar creams into the butter easier than standard sugar.
- Butter: I use salted butter for this recipe (shock horror), as I like the subtle taste it gives against the sweet dulce de leche. You can use unsalted butter if preferred.
- Coconut: Desiccated coconut is used to roll the finished alfajores de maicena to cover the dulce de leche. You can skip this step if you don't like coconut.
- Plain Flour: Use plain, in this recipe don't substitute self-raising flour and omit the baking powder.
- Condensed Milk (not shown): A can of condensed milk is used to make the dulce de leche if you are making it from scratch.
Hero Ingredient - Dulce De Leche
The most important part of this recipe. Without it, these alfajores de maicena would simply be tasty but plain shortbread. You can purchase dulce de leche at specialty food stores.
Or you can make it yourself. It is really easy to do, all you need is a can of sweetened condensed milk. Follow my step by step guide, how to make dulce de leche easily.
Recipe Walk Through
Pre-heat oven 180°C (360°F). Line a baking tray/ cookie sheet with baking paper.
Cream butter and sugar in a bowl, using either a stand mixer or handheld electric beaters until fluffy.
Continue beating and add vanilla essence.
Add the egg and egg yolk, beat until completely combined.
Turn beaters down to a low speed and slowly beat in the flours and baking powder.
As soon as the mixture comes together stop the beaters. You do not want to over beat the dough.
Form dough into a smooth round ball, again do not overwork the dough.
Between two pieces of baking paper/parchment paper, using a rolling pin, roll dough out until is is roughly 5cm (one eighth inch) thick.
Carefully remove the top layer of baking paper. Then using a 5cm (2 inch) cookie cutter, cut out cookie rounds and place on the lined baking tray.
Place in the oven and bake for 8 – 10 minutes. Once baked leave cookies to cool for a couple of minutes on the tray before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Place dulce de leche in a piping bag and pipe some dulce de leche on to the underside of one of the cookies.
Then sandwich the filling together with another cookie. Again the underside of the second cookie should be touching the dulce de leche.
Continue with the rest of the cookies.
Once all the cookies have been filled, roll the edges in desiccated coconut.
Store in an airtight container.
Tips & Tricks
- If you find the alfajores cookies dough starts to get a little too soft to handle, place it in the fridge to firm up.
- I have a roll of large disposable piping bags, and find using a piping bag (no tip) makes filling the alfajores with the dulce de leche much easier. You can of course use a spoon, I just find it messier as the dulce de leche is very thick and sticky.
- Use a marble rolling pin when working with dough or pastry as it is cold and helps to keep what I am working with cooler.
- As tempting as it is, don't overfill the cookie sandwiches.
Alfajores FAQs
Alfajores are found throughout South America but are best known to come from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Peru. They are also very popular in The Philippines.
The "j" is pronounced as an "h", alpha-HORE-ays.
You can store filled alfajores for up to 6 days in an airtight container in the fridge.
Unfilled shortbread cookies can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for 7 days or in the freezer for 1 month.
Printable Recipe
Alfajores de Maicena
Special Equipment
- stand mixer or electric beaters
- Rolling Pin
- baking tray /cookie sheet
- cooling rack
Ingredients
- 125 grams (½ cup) butter at room temperature
- 115 grams (½ cup) caster sugar (superfine sugar)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 150 grams (1¼ cups) cornflour (cornstarch)
- 150 grams (1 cup) plain flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- dulce de leche
- desiccated coconut for rolling
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven 180°C (360°F). Line a baking tray/ cookie sheet with baking paper.
- Cream butter and sugar in a bowl, using either a stand mixer or handheld electric beaters until fluffy.
- Continue beating and add vanilla essence.
- Add the egg and egg yolk, beat until completely combined.
- Turn beaters down to a low speed and slowly beat in the flours and baking powder. As soon as the mixture comes together stop the beaters. You do not want to over beat the dough.
- Form dough into a smooth round ball, again do not overwork the dough.
- Between two pieces of baking paper, using a rolling pin, roll dough out until is is roughly 5cm (one eighth inch) thick.
- Carefully remove the top layer of baking paper. Then using a 5cm (2 inch) cookie cutter, cut out cookie rounds and place on the lined baking tray.
- Place in the oven and bake for 8 - 10 minutes. You do not want the cookies to colour. They will spread slightly when cooking.
- Remove tray from the oven and leave cookies to cool for a couple of minutes on the tray before transferring them to a cooling rack.
Alfajores Assembly
- Once the cookies are completely cooled you can assemble the cookies.
- Place dulce de leche in a piping bag and pipe some dulce de leche on to the underside of one of the cookies.
- Then sandwich the filling together with another cookie. Again the underside of the second cookie should be touching the dulce de leche.
- Continue with the rest of the cookies.
- Once all the cookies have been filled, roll the edges in desiccated coconut.
Measurement Notes
All measurements are Australian metric standard. All measures are level, and cups are lightly packed unless specified. 1 teaspoon = 5ml / 1 tablespoon = 20mls / 1 cup = 250ml /4 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon.
Recipe Notes
- 1 teaspoon equals 5ml
- 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml (Nth America, NZ & UK use 15ml tablespoons)
- 1 cup equals 250ml (Nth America use 237ml)
- 4 teaspoons equals 1 tablespoon
- I use the below unless specified in my recipes;
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
The recipe's nutritional information is an approximation based on an online calculator. It is meant solely for reference purposes. If you're looking for precise details, be sure to double-check with your own research.
More Cookie Recipes
We have some great cookie recipes on Belly Rumbles to be explored. If you are after a delicious shortbread recipe my peanut butter shortbread cookies are pretty damn tasty, so are my crunchy coconut biscuits. Have a look at the links below.
Tara Cascarelli
Just made these cookies for my son's Spanish class since they are doing a chapter on food. He did the research and found this recipe. My husband said my son should receive an F and not bring the cookies into school. They are amazing!!! I was a little scared to make them since I have never even seen or tasted them. Didn't know what to expect! These will be on my list to make again. Thank you for sharing you recipe! Delicious!
Sara McCleary
Hi Tara
I'm so glad that the alfajores were a hit. I'm so happy that your son stumbled across my recipe for school. Seems your husband was happy too 🙂
Cheers, Sara
Helen
I have scrolled through 3 times but I can't see the list that shows "amounts" of each ingredient - just a photo and a description of the ingredients?! Not sure if browsing on my phone is causing an issue?
Sara McCleary
Hi Helen
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. It's us, not you. For some reason the recipe had "fallen off" the post. Gremlins are obviously at play.
You can find the recipe towards the end of the post. Or click "printable recipe" in the contents and you will be taken directly to the recipe.
My apologies for the inconvenience caused!
Cheers, Sara
Amanda Marie Boyle
My friend's mom used to make these but wouldn't share her secret recipe! This is as close as I can get to them! Thank you
Amanda Wren-Grimwood
These sound devine! The combination of shortbread and caramel is so good.
Dannii
These look beautiful. Much easier than I thought they would be too.
Alice | SkinnySpatula
These look aboslutely incredible. I so love the idea of rolling dulce de leche in coconut!
Nart at Cooking with Nart
Wow, I've never seen or heard of these before. They kind look like macarons. I learned something from your post today. Thanks so much for sharing! Gonna have to give these a go 🙂