Melt in Your Mouth Little Powdered Angels - Alfajor Cookies

Alfajor is basically two shortbread cookies sandwiched in between dulce de leche or in a layman’s term, milk caramel or caramel  pudding.

If this rings a bell then I believe you’ve been to Good Shepherd’s Convent in Baguio City to buy these little yummy treats! The first time I tasted these was when my bestfriend and I took the bus to Manila together with her grandma. It’s no brainer that lola had her bag full of goodies for the kids (yes, us girls) to nibble on. She handed out a plastic container and I wasn’t all too shy to get one of the cookies immediately. The moment I took my first bite I said to myself, “oh god, this is soooo addicting!”

Finally decided to make a home-made version of these cookies. It’s really not practical to get this shipped from Baguio to my house. And besides, it’s not necessarily available in markets here in Manila. The best alternative way to cure inevitable cravings was to bake some for yourself. And I did!

Now, you should know there are hundreds of recipes for Alfajor cookies in the net. All of it differs from one another, so before you start scavenging through piles of recipe ask yourself these essential questions:

1. What texture do I want my Alfajor cookies to turn out? Hard and crumbly, or soft and cake-y?

2. How many cookies will this recipe yield?

Since I wanted to recreate something similar to that of Good Shepherd’s, I opted to search for recipes which makes the base cookie (shortbread cookie) into the crumbly variant. This is the recipe I found and followed throughout the whole process.

Meanwhile, I should discuss one important thing, THE DULCE DE LECHE, the filling which makes or breaks your Alfajor cookies. There are basically two ways in which you can make your dulce de leche: the hard way would be to start the milk caramel from scratch  or make your life a lot easier by buying cans of condensed milk and boiling it in water for around 3.5 hours. 

LET’S TALK DULCE DE LECHE:

You need to read this because I basically (sort of) screw this step up, hence the runny dulce de leche on the picture (the alfajor cookies look like they’re sticking their tongue out on me).

First of all, YES YOU CAN BOIL CANS WITHOUT IT EXPLODING. Just make sure you fill up your deep dish so that the can is fully submerged in water. You absolutely need to let them boil for more than 3 hours, or else you’ll get a slightly thickened and brownish milk caramel.

Helpful tips to be sure you already have the perfect dulce de leche consistecy:

Tip # 1: If you’re saving on gas, I suggest you pressure cook the cans (make sure to take out the paper label first). Again, make sure the cans are completely submerged in water. Pressure cook your sweetened condensed milk (still in the can of course)  for 2.5 hours. This way, you’ve already cut down the hours making the milk caramel rather than have it boiled the old fashioned way for about 4 hours. If you don’t have a pressure cooker then boil the can (again completely submerged in water) for 4 full hours.

Tip #2: If you want to check if your condensed milk are firm enough without having to open them, get them out of the water and (get safety gloves the can is hot) shake the cans. If you still hear any liquids, chances are they are still not thick. Let them boil again there. If there are no sounds of wiggling when you shake the can, this only means that they are dense and thick the way we want them to be.

Tip #3: Once you know for sure your condensed milk has fully caramelized into a pudding-like (very thick, not runny) texture, then let is cool first. Don’t open it until it’s fully cooled down.

Tip #4: No, you can’t open the condensed milk and cook it directly on a pan and directly on top of the stove top! Unless you’re making yema balls, then I completely understand. But this procedure doesn’t work for our dulce de leche. The best way is to boil the cans whole.

LET’S TALK SHORT BREAD COOKIES:

Dry Ingredients:

    1 2/3 cups all purpose flour 

    2 1/2 cups corn starch

    1/2 tsp. baking soda 

    2 tsps.baking powder

Wet Ingredients:

    200 grams butter, softened room temp. (7/8 cup of butter, minus 1/4 cup in a 1 cup worth of butter)

    3/4 cup sugar

    3 egg yolks

    1 tsp. vanilla extract

     1-2 tsps. grated lemon zest (or 1/2 tsp of lemon extract)

1. Sift of all the dry ingredients. Make sure there are no lumps! It’s imperative you do all the sifting. If you have to sift twice, then that would be better. After sifting, make sure to stir it around. You want to get all the baking powder, baking soda well distrubuted around the flour and cornstarch mixture. Set this aside.

2.  In another bowl, cream your butter until light and fluffy. Add in your sugar and beat for about a minute. Add in your egg yolks, vanilla extract and the lemon zest/extract. Beat until well blended. Set this bowl aside.

3. Go back to you dry mixture, make a hole in between the mixture and put in your wet mixture. It’s preferable that you use your hands in blending the two together. It will look like you’re making a pie crust. Just knead it well (but please dont over do it) until the pieces stick together and you form a ball (of course not a perfect ball because the dough will be crumbly). But it in a bowl with a cling wrap and refrigerate for an hour, until it is cool.

4. Preheat your oven to 350 F.

5. After chilling the dough, flour your board (where you’ll work on rolling your chilled dough). Get your rolling pin, flour it, then roll out your dough until it’s around .5 cm thick. Believe me you don’t want a thick short bread cookie because it will weigh down your dulce de leche filling if it’s too thick.

6. Get your circular cookie cutter, 1 inch big circle then cut out some of the dough and place it on your cookie sheet. Be careful in handling the cookies because yes, it is crumbly and delicate! But it will harden and shape up once you bake it.

7. Bake for around 5-8 minutes. Check the cookies once in a while. It should still be white, with a hint of light brown color.

8. When it’s done, get it out and let it cool down on a wire rack

9. Spoon some dulce de leche onto the cookie, then sandwich with another cookie.Roll the cookie in some powdered sugar to make them look more magical.

Where I went wrong, and hopefully, these things you will avoid when you decide to try this recipe out:

1. A RUNNY DULCE DE LECHE. Because I was too conscious about consuming too much gas, I only let the cans boil for 2 hours, then pressure cooked it for 30 minutes. When I opened the can, I got a slightly thickened and brown caramel, which tastes good on vanilla sundaes, but not for this recipe. You need a really thick and dense caramel filling here! So you need to boil it for 4 hours or pressure cook it for 2-2.5 hours.

2. BIG COOKIE CUTTER: The circlular, circle,round (whatever) cookie cutter that I used was too big! You need only a bite size one, not too big, and not too small. 

3. SHORTBREAD COOKIES WERE TOO THICK. I should have rolled out the dough a little bit thinner. My short bread cookies were to thick, sandwich in a runny dulche de leche then poof! They ooze out of the cookies. 

Even though I made mistakes, at least I know how to perfect it next time. These were already gone in what? less than a day! I think it’s still mission accomplished! Next time, I’ll revisit the recipe again and post new photos. 

I give this recipe a 3.5/5, only because I didn’t perfect it the first time around.Fulfilled my Alfajor craving nonetheless!

 P.S.

Please pardon the pictures. The alfajor did not look as good as I wanted it to be, but since it’s my first time to make these, spare me, just this time. Really good looking ones I promise to post  next time! 

Photography by Leggo David