Steemit Culinary Challenge #40 - Alfajores with Homemade Dulce de Leche

Hello Steemit Culinarians! Today I present to you my entry for the Mexican edition of the Steemit Culinary Challenge, graciously hosted by @woman-onthe-wing!

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For the Mexican theme, I made Alfajores (alpha-HOR-ays), a traditional cookie found in Mexico and other Latin countries. I made regular-sized and mini baby-sized Alfajores too! (I'll call them Alfajorecitos!) :)

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These cookies use a combination of flour and cornstarch, which results in silky smooth crumbly dough.

Between two of the simple, not-too-sweet shortbread cookies nestles a sticky layer of dulce de leche (DOOL-say day LEH-chay).

Dulce de leche is a combination of milk and sugar (and vanilla) that is reduced for hours to become a sticky, toffee-like, creamy caramel-like confection that is beyond words. I have plenty left over after making these Alfajores, which will go marvelously swirled into vanilla ice cream or stirred into coffee...

But back to this week's entry, here's the run down:

Dulce de Leche

Ingredients

• 4 cups milk (I used 2%)
• 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 t vanilla
• 1/4 t baking soda

Directions

• Combine all of the ingredients in a medium saucepan.
• Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer until the entire mixture thickens until it is a bit looser than caramel.

It took several hours to reduce the Dulce de Leche all the way. I took a break somewhere in the middle to take a trip to Home Depot!

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Let's pause for a Cookie Photo Interlude

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Alfajores cookies

Ingredients

• 3/4 c all purpose flour
• 1 c corn starch
• 1/3 c sugar
• 1/2 c butter, salted
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1 t baking powder
• 1 t vanilla
• 2 egg yolks

Directions

• Stir together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder in one bowl.
• Using a hand mixer, combine the egg yolks, sugar, butter, and vanilla.
• Gradually incorporate the flour mixture into the butter-egg-sugar mixture until combined.
• Form into a ball and wrap in plastic before putting it in the refrigerator to chill all the way through.
• Once cool, take the dough and roll it out on a floured counter or table top until it's 1/3 to 1/4 inch thick.
• Use cookie cutters to cut discs, or get fancy and make some mini circles, hearts, or other shapes.

• Bake at 350°F for 10-15 minutes, depending on your oven, until the cookies are baked through but not browned.

• Once cooled, assemble the Alfajores by sandwiching two cookies with cooled Dulce de Leche.

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A huge thanks to the host of this contest, @woman-onthe-wing, and the generous sponsors @gringalicious, @englishtchrivy, @sirwinchester, @rebeccaryan, and our guest judge @tioluis.

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Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please do check out my blog.

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All content and images by @jaymorebeet, taken on September 2, 2017 with a Canon 7D Mark II.