Chocolate Alfajores Recipe with Homemade Dulce de Leche

Chocolate Alfajores are a soft chocolate shortbread cookie filled with yummy milk caramel dulce de leche.

Author: Nick Makrides

Prep 45

Cook 20

Chill 1 30

Total 3 15

Ingredients

Dulce De Leche

▢ 2 cans sweetened condensed milk see notes on how to make it yourself

Chocolate Shortbread

▢ 200 g unsalted butter softened (see notes)
▢ 110 g powdered sugar icing sugar
▢ 3 g fine salt
▢ 14 g vanilla extract
▢ 1 orange zested optional
▢ 290 g all-purpose flour plain flour
▢ 40 g Dutch processed cocoa powder sifted (see notes)

Chocolate Coating

▢ 300 g dark cooking chocolate see notes
▢ 2 tbsp vegetable oil
▢ 50 g shredded coconut optional

Instructions

Dulce De Leche

For this recipe, you can use store bought dulce de leche or make it yourself. Making it at home is really easy and much cheaper too. To learn how to make it at home, check out the notes section which links you to my recipe!

Chocolate Shortbread

Whip butter and sugar - Add your softened butter, sugar, salt, vanilla extract and orange zest (optional) to a medium sized mixing bowl. Use an electric hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment to cream the ingredients together until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add dry ingredients - Add half the flour and cocoa powder (sifted) and use a spatula to mix until a dough forms and no dry ingredients are showing. Then add the remaining dry ingredients and repeat. The dough will be soft and smooth when pressed together. If it’s a warm day the dough may be too soft to work with so pop it in the fridge for 30 min to firm up before moving to the next step.
Rolling out the dough - Form the dough into two flat oval shapes using your hands. Place one dough disc on top of a large piece of baking paper and place another large piece of baking paper on top. Roll out to about 1/2cm / 0.20-inch in thickness. Repeat with the other dough disc.
Chill the dough - place the rolled dough onto a large baking tray and chill in the fridge for an hour.
Preheat your oven to 150C / 300F (fan off), 130C / 265F (fan on).
Cutting out the biscuits - Use a 4cm / 1.5-inch round cookie cutter to cut out your cookies. I used fluted edged ones.
Baking - Place on the baking tray, spacing about 2cm apart to allow them to spread slightly. Bake for 20 minutes. They’ll be slightly soft when they come out of the oven but will firm up as they cool.
To assemble - Fill half of the cookies with dulce de leche and sandwich with the other half. I did this by using a piping bag and snipped the end off. You can also use two teaspoons to do this.

Chocolate Coating (optional)

To prepare the chocolate coating - Add the chocolate and oil into a heat proof bowl and melt in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring each time until melted. Alternatively, you can bring a pot of water to a gentle simmer and place the bowl on top, making sure the bottom of the bowl isn’t touching the water and stir until melted. Allow to cool slightly before using.
Coat in chocolate - I like to dip half of my sandwiched cookies into melted chocolate allowing excess chocolate to drip off. Place them on a baking tray to set before serving. You can sprinkle some coconut on the chocolate before it sets if you like.

Notes

Storage - cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week.

Dulce De leche

I have three simple methods for making dulce de leche at home which is much easier and hands off than you think. Especially if you have a slow cooker which is my favorite method of making it. Learn how to make Dulce De Leche at home using my recipe! The blog post also includes my tips and tricks too!

Softened Butter - Make sure your butter is softened for this recipe. It’ll ensure it mixes well with the sugar and also that the dough isn’t overly soft. That’ll make it easier to work with.. I have a full guide on how to properly soften butter on the blog, but for reference, softened butter is 18C / 65F on a thermometer. Cut it into cubes and let it sit at room temperature for 1-2 hours until it reaches this temperature to until it’s soft enough that when you press on it with your finger, it leaves an indent with some resistance.

Silicone rolling guides - These are so great for rolling dough out to an even thickness. You can buy them online. I bought mine on amazon.

A note on measurements – This recipe uses weight measurements for the most accurate results. Cup measurements can vary depending on where you are, which affects the precision needed for a recipe like this. Here is where you can learn more about how to measure ingredients using digital kitchen scales.

Keyword Chocolate, cookies, dulce de leche

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