Alfajores - Chilean Pastry with Dulce de Leche

This is one of my favorite things from Chile. I love the light consistency of the egg dough with the silkiness of a delicious chilean manjar (dulce de leche) ... simply perfect!


Ingredients:

5 Egg yolks
½ cup sifted all purpose flour
½ cup cornstarch
½ tspn. baking powder
2 Tbspn. Orange juice
1 can Dulce de Leche NESTLE


Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400ºF.

In a bowl of a stand mixer, add the egg yolks and beat them with the whisk until very pale. In a separate bowl sift the flour, baking powder and cornstarch. Add the dry ingredients to the egg yolks in three parts, adding the orange juice in between. Once the dough is moisten change the whisk for the dough hook and kneed for a few minutes until soft and dry (no sticky).

If you're using a regular mixer, beat the egg yolks until pale. Add the dry ingredients alternating with the orange juice. Once everything has moistened, transfer the dough to a floured surface and kneed by hand until de dough is soft and no longer sticky.

Roll the dough very thin (1/8") but making sure it is always rolled on the same side (if you roll both sides of the dough, once you bake the disks they will not curl). Cut disks (you can choose the size, I usually use a medium biscuit cutter) and prickle with a fork. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper (or spray it with cooking spray) and bake the disks for 3 minutes. (make sure they stay pale and do not get gold)

Spoon Dulce de Leche generously over the inside of one disk and top it with the inside of another one. You can sprinkle the alfajores with powder sugar before serving (optional)



Source: Nestle.cl - Recipe Courtesy of "La Cocina Nestle"