Sunday, May 23, 2010

This week, in the new kitchen.

I had been dreaming about making Alfajores since my Chilean friend described these chocolate-covered dulce de leche-filled sandwich cookies. I cut out a recipe from Fine Cooking Magazine (also found here) and finally found the right occasion to make them this week. It all seemed to be going quite well at first. The dulce de leche was thick and tasted divine. The cookies seemed to come out alright, despite this being my first attempt at high-altitude baking.


Filling the cookies was fun, until I looked down at the completed ones to see all of the dulce de leche squeezing out of the sides! What a crying shame! I tried to remedy this by quickly dipping them into the chocolate, but disaster struck again--the chocolate wouldn't set, and ended up running all over the pan (I had thoughtfully placed underneath the wire racks!)


They ended up looking like a mess, but I was still hopeful that they would taste good.


But sadly, without much dulce de leche, I was just left with a fairly bland cookie and a too-rich layer of messy chocolate. Sigh. If only I had found the recipe reviews online before I started! Has anyone else made these successfully before?

Much more successful was my attempt to use up a surplus of potatoes and feta, by making some very yummy potato, artichoke and feta latkes.


I really liked the addition of fresh mint, which I picked from my garden.


Highs and lows, but all in the name of learning.

3 comments:

Becky said...

When I visited Chile our host family gave us dulce de leche on pancakes, mmmm - it might not be as messy as trying to put them in a cookie :) but those cookies sure look good!

Hilary said...

You know, I love the *idea* of Alfajores, but never found one in Chile or Argentina that I really loved. The cookie is too bland or something. But to echo what Becky said, panqueque con dulce de leche is THE BEST THING EVER OH MY GOSH.

Natalia said...

jajaja! you have to use dulce de leche de repostería for making those, is not the same that is used to eat, with a spoon, dulce de leche, chocolate and cookies you can never go wrong, is such a delicious mix!