Buttery Cookies with Thick Dulce de Leche Filling (Alfajores)

Buttery Cookies with Thick Dulce de Leche Filling (Alfajores)

Continuing on with the Peruvian theme this week, here are some cookies that are popular in Peru, Alfajores. I was supposed to make these for the Peruvian dinner, but I didn't get them finished. So I made them the next day.

These sandwich cookies are basically made of caramel squished between shortbread, with just a hint of lemon. The caramel tasted exactly like how I remember those little caramel square candies tasting and with the same texture/consistency. Conceivably, one could take the dulce de leche (caramel) recipe and use it to just make the little candies, or even dip apples into it for caramel apples. It is that time of year, afterall.

 

Anyway, this recipe is also from the Viva Vegan cookbook. I think the cookies were ok. I really liked the caramel alone, and the shortbread was fine. Just not sure how I feel about them together or the cookie overall. I'd eat them again, but probably wouldn't go out of my way to make them simply because they were a lot of work; requiring rolling out dough, cutting out cookies shapes, plus making and working with the filling was more work than I liked. I think other people would like them, and it was just a personal taste issue why they only get a "meh" from me.

Also, these cookies are best eaten fresh. After the second day my caramel middle was rather hard to bite through with the cookie bits which were nice and soft Or maybe I just cooked the caramel too long or let it sit for too long. I dunno. The caramel was still good, it was just hard to eat the pieces together at the same time.