About the Recipe
Tender cookies, a generous middle of dulce de leche, and just enough cacao to balance the sweetness: these alfajores are made for sharing over a cup of coffee. Our version of the Argentine favorite uses full-fat cacao melted into the butter. A finely chopped nib edge adds a little crunch, if that is your kind of cookie.
Use dulce de leche sweetened only with panela, prepared and cooled before you begin; the listed timing assumes the filling is ready.
Ingredients
40 g XOL Full Spectrum Cacao Powder
90 g unsalted butter, softened, divided (20 g + 70 g)
70 g finely powdered, sifted panela
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100 g all-purpose flour, plus a little for rolling
100 g cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
240 g thick dulce de leche sweetened only with panela, prepared and cooled
20 g XOL Cacao Nibs, very finely chopped, optional
Preparation
1. Gently melt 20 g of the butter. Remove from the heat and stir in the Full Spectrum cacao until smooth, then let it cool to lukewarm. This cacao contains its natural cocoa butter, so we melt it into the dough.
2. Grind the measured panela to a very fine powder and sift it; weigh 70 g after sifting. Beat it with the remaining 70 g softened butter until creamy. Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla, followed by the cooled cacao mixture.
3. Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. Mix into the butter mixture just until the dough comes together; stop before it becomes tough. Flatten into a disk, wrap, and chill for 45 minutes.
4. Heat the oven to 350°F / 175°C. Roll the dough between lightly floured parchment sheets to 5 mm thick. Cut rounds about 5 cm across, rerolling the scraps gently. Aim for about 36 rounds; the yield varies with thickness.
5. Bake on parchment-lined trays for 10–12 minutes, until the edges look set. The cookies should stay tender, so do not wait for dark edges. Let them rest on the tray for 10 minutes before carefully moving to a rack.
6. Once completely cool, sandwich the cookies with about 13 g dulce de leche per pair. Roll the filling edges in finely chopped nibs if you like. A few hours in an airtight container lets the filling soften the cookies beautifully.