Alfajores are cookies that are made in several South American countries, each country altering the ingredients just a bit. I did a lot of research and looked at a couple cookbooks my husbands family sent me from Chile and Ecuador and made some changes that made these cookies what they are – delicious! Lightly sweet, super soft cookies, and more often than not are eaten up by my family before I can even add the dulce de leche to them to make a sandwich cookie 🙂 If dulce de leche is not your thing, they are also incredibly delicious with some jam – raspberry is my personal favorite! In some countries they use cornstarch and egg yolks, some have you roll out the dough and cut the cookies out, but I preferred this recipe to all the rest. I wanted them to be as easy as possible and rolling out dough at times it can be fun, but it is also time consuming!
The Nestle dulce de leche is found in the latino/spanish food aisle in really any grocery store. It is the only one I have ever used. I am sure the others are just as good, I am going to have to try the others as well!
I am a big fan of always using real butter when I bake. Many recipes I grew up making say that using margarine is just as good, but I have to disagree. I follow Becky from Bite of Delight on Instagram, and she is the sweetest! She always shares the great deals she finds, and because of her I was able to stock up on a bunch of Land ‘o Lakes butter from a great sale at Smith’s! Gotta love great deals!
You can spread on the dulce de leche straight from the can, or you can do what I did and add a few spices – just a bit – cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, tastes like Christmas!
Using my fine mesh strainer I added a bit of powdered sugar on the top – as is customary with any Alfajor from any country.
This is seriously one of the best cookies you have probably never heard of, but you should definitely try! Please let me know what you and your family think about them!
See the Happy!
- 2 1/2 cups sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 3 sticks unsalted butter room temp
- 1 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 6 cups all purpose flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 13.4 oz cans dulce de leche I buy Nestle brand, you can also substitute jam for the sandwich center instead.
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- Preheat the oven to 350*. Prep two cookie sheets with parchment paper or spray with Pam.
- Put the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl and mix on medium for two minutes, until fluffy.
- While the sugar and butter are mixing, measure the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.
- Add the eggs to the butter and sugar one at a time and mix until well combined.
- Alternate adding a bit of the flour mixture with the liquids - the milk, orange juice, and vanilla. Make sure to use a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom to ensure you are mixing it all in. Mix for a full 2 minutes. The dough will seem a little runny and that is how its supposed to be 🙂
- Using a 1 1/2 inch cookie scoop (I got mine at Orson Gygi), scoop the cookies on the cookie sheet (I do 5 across, 3 up and down). Put in the oven and bake 12-14 minutes. While that is baking scoop cookies onto the other sheet.
- Open the dulce de leche cans add to a small bowl. Mix in the cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg if you desire. We love them with and without so it is really your preference.
- Once the cookies have baked remove from oven and allow the cookies to sit on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes before moving them to cooling racks. Add more dough and alternate baking through on the two cookie sheets until you have baked all the dough, about 4-5 times. It will seem like A LOT of cookies, but you have to remember you need two cookies per Alfajor.
- Once they have cooled, spread a good amount of dulce de leche or jam, whichever you prefer, over the bottom of one cookie. Add another cookie to the top to complete the sandwich. Lay on the cookie sheet or a plate and put a small amount of powdered sugar in a mesh strainer and lightly tap with your hand to dust the top of the cookies. Enjoy!
Yum! Those look amazing! I am always down with dulce de leche, and if it’s in cookie form, I don’t think I could stay away!
Wow!!! I love Alfajores. I’ll definitely try your recipe. It sounds delicious 🙂
Thanks for stopping by Fabi! This was the only cookie I was able to make for the holidays -things just got so crazy. Every family we gave them to loved them, I hope you guys like them as well! Take care 🙂
Si son alfajores chilenos porque no pones la receta en español?
Lo siento Teresa, como vivo en los ustados unidos no he tenido mucha gente que habla español que vean el blog, asi que solo he puesto en ingles. Si me manda su email, le puedo hacer en español para mandarle 🙂
How long do you bake these cookies?
Hey Joan, I wrote in the instructions from 12-14 minutes, but you will need to see what works best for you as all ovens don’t bake the same. I hope you love them as much as we do! Take care!
My daughter needed to bring food in for her Spanish class. The country she was representing was Chile. We came across your recipes, baked them up and she brought a whole bunch to school. Well, the class went crazy over them and offered to pay if she brought them more cookies!! Since they went over so well with her class, I decided to make them for a sandwich shop I work for. Well, we can’t keep enough stocked! People love them!! Thank you so much for such a great recipe!!!
This is so sweet of you! Thanks so much for taking the time to let me know. The Alfajores are so delicious and I love that you have helped so many enjoy them as well! Please let me know what shop you work at – I would love to give it some love on FB or instagram!
Can you tell me how much 3 sticks of butter equates to, I am in the uk and one pack of butter equates to 250g. Also what does a cup equate to. Thank you
Hello Wendy! I just googled this – 1 stick of butter = 1/2 cup, and 1/2 cup of butter is 113 grams. I hope this helps! Enjoy!
Is there a replacement for the orange juice? I would love to make these for my husband but he is not a fan of citrus.
Hey Amee! Thanks for stopping by! Alfajores are such a delicious treat. The orange juice gives such a lite taste when combined with the other ingredients. Orange juice is acidic, so for the cookies to turn out as fluffy as they do, I would choose a juice that is acidic as well – pomegranate, grape, maybe apple but that is less acidic. Baking powder should do the job of helping them to rise, but I’m just not sure if that orange juice gives it a bit more of a kick to add bubbles. If you don’t want to use juice you could try buttermilk as that is also acidic. I am curious to know how they turn out – would you mind coming back and letting me know?
love em
They ARE delicious, aren’t they?
Just made these. Delicious. Should they refrigerated or is it ok at room temp
Olivia, I apologize for the delay getting back to you. I’m glad you enjoyed these yummy Alfajores! I always just store mine in a large Tupperware container to keep them fresh 😉
we also have this kind of cookies in the philippines.. but we dont put dulce de leche.. just plain cookies sprinkled with conefectioners sugar.. we call it alfajor.. i think filipinos adapted it from south americans during the galleon trade.. we used to have it as a merienda with hot chocolate or coffee.. i would definitely try your recipe.. it looks delicious.. even more with dulce de leche.. yummm…
Should these be refrigerated?
I apologize for the delay in responding Z. I do not refrigerate them, I just make sure they are in an air tight tupperware. Thanks for stopping by!
When it says it makes 36 cookies, does that mean 36 alfajores or 36 individual cookies, making 18 alfajores?
I apologize for the delay in answering! It makes 36 individual alfajores total – so 72 cookies, then each alfajor takes 2 cookies. Its a big batch, but they get eaten up so quickly because we take them to our friends and family as well. Im never sad for that big batch!
Hi Kirsten
I have a can of dulce de leche and was looking for a recipe to use it with. Yours looks like it will be a hit.
My question is how long will they stay fresh? Can I freeze it to keep for later or should I freeze the cookies without the dulce de leche filling in it and put it on before serving?
I apologize for the delay in responding. I have never gotten anything but two thumbs up on this recipe – I have honestly never frozen them, they go way too fast and I always drop them off to friends who love them. They are somewhat delicate, so if you decide to try to freeze them I would put parchment paper between layer so they don’t stick to each other. I would put the dulce de leche on after you thaw them. I hope that helps! Would you come back and let me know how it goes? Have a beautiful day!
I believe this is my new favorite cookie. I did a history travel lesson on the country of Chile and found this recipe and had the baker at work make these. The residents loved them and so did I. The baker was so pleased with this recipe that she made enough to be served to all the residents at dinner time. We have about 180 residents in our facility. I can’t wait to hear their comments tomorrow!
Sounds like a great way to get all your residents involved and learning – I love trying different recipes from other countries! I’m so glad you liked them! You are not the first to make these on a large scale- they are just so good, I have never had a complaint about them! Thanks for taking the time to share your experience, it means a lot! Have a beautiful day!
Are these good for your health or are they bad?
I’m asking because this is for a spanish project I’m doing in school so please do reply immediately!
Also it’d be gladly appreciated if you could tell me how much calories they contain!!
But if you don’t know then that’s alright 🙂
Hello Diane! As a general rule most cookies are not very good for your health because of all the sugar, but they are good for the soul (in moderation:)) I hope that your Spanish project goes well. We have made them for my daughter’s Spanish class several years in a row and they are always a hit, the kids request them when I help out in the classroom. Depending on the size of your cookie scoop and how much dulce de leche you put on them, the cookies are about 200 – 250 calories. They are a large cookie, much bigger than most I would say. Good luck!
OMG! I love these! I made them for a class project over Chile and everyone loved them. Not only that I shared some with my family and they enjoyed them so much I had to make another batch. Now I love making them and seeing my family happy.