Category : Alfajor, Alfajores, baking, cookies, dulce de leche, orders, parties, powdered sugar, shortbread cookies, spanish treats, sweet treats, sweets
I have been baking Alfajores for two weeks now. Why? Because the first time I challenged myself to baking these, it was a huge success that I got orders from people already. But wait, you might say, "What the heck is she talking about? Alfajores? What Alfajores?!"
When did it all started? Hmm...
What are Alfajores?
Well, Alfajor or Alfajores (plural) are a South American type of shortbread cookies spread with dulce de leche in between. The traditional Alfajor recipe could be traced back to Latin American and Spanish origins and have been passed on since the early 1800's. There are a lot of other local variations of Alfajores but the traditional ones are cookies spread with dulce de leche and smothered with powdered sugar. Here in the Philippines, Alfajores could be bought from Baguio's Good Shepherd pastry shops and are a bit expensive but lots of people are fanatics of this sweet and salty treat. I tasted one and it gave me the urge to make a better version of it!
So, being a fan of dulce de leche, I challenged myself to make an Alfajor. I found an online traditional recipe I bought the ingredients, and just had the guts to mix and tweak the recipe with my stock knowledge and experience with baking (from watching and reading cookbooks and blogs). And after a few hours of spending the hot afternoon in the kitchen and near the oven, my first Alfajor was born.
And soon enough, my Alfajores multiplied. My sister and my little brothers enjoyed the sweet treats. I brought a box of it to work and gave another box to my hunny and soon enough, they were asking for more. Now I have a lot of orders to fill in. :) And I also had a lot of the Alfajores while I was preparing them... As I said before, I am a dulce de leche fanatic and what I love most about this treat is the contrast of the sweet dulce de leche to the salty, buttery crumble cookie. Makes my eyes flutter.
I made my Alfajor cookies more interesting by making heart shapes. Well, for these recipe, I bought my very first rolling pin! Yey!
And they were smothered with LOVE.. oops, I mean, with sweet powdered sugar...
Now I can say, I'm in-love with my Alfajores... and so is everybody else. :)
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