Alfajores de Maicena
Auth: 
Recipe type: sweet treat
Cuisine: Argentina
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 24
 
A light and crumbly shortbread, filled with caramel and rolled in coconut. Perfect with coffee!
Ingredients
  • 85 grams butter, at room temperature
  • ½ cup caster sugar
  • 1 teaspoon lemon rind
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 cup plain flour
  • 1 ¼ cup cornflour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • extra cornflour for rolling pastry
  • 1 cup desiccated coconut
  • 1 cup Dulce de Leche (a tin of sweetened condensed milk, covered with water and boiled for 3 ½ hours)
Instructions
  1. Cream the butter, sugar, lemon rind and vanilla essence with an electric mixer until smooth (1 to 2 minutes)
  2. Beat in whole egg till combined
  3. Mix through ¼ cup plain flour and then the egg yolk
  4. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and stir mixture to combine
  5. Sift the rest of the flour, cornflour and baking powder into the mixing bowl
  6. Stir with a wooden spoon till a dough forms (do not over mix)
  7. Scrape the dough out, form intoa disc and cover with cling wrap, chill for at least 2 hours in the fridge
  8. Grease two baking trays and heat oven to 180C
  9. Dust a little cornflour on the bench and a rolling pin
  10. Roll out the dough to ½ cm thin and press out discs using a 5cm biscuit cutter
  11. Gather scraps of dough, roll out and cut as many discs as possible from the dough
  12. Lay biscuits on greased baking trays and place in the oven
  13. Cook for 8-10 minutes till the bottoms are cooked but the tops are still creamy white
  14. Allow to cool on the baking tray for 5 minutes and then cool completely on a wire rack
  15. TO ASSEMBLE
  16. Top one biscuit with a small teaspoon of dulce de leche and top with another biscuit
  17. Squeeze together till a little caramel oozes from the sides, smooth along the outside of the biscuit
  18. Place desiccated coconut in a bowl and roll around the edges of the alfajores to cover with coconut
  19. Yield: 24 small alfajores
Recipe by Lorena Uriarte at https://lorenauriarte.com/alfajores-de-maicena/