Yield: about 20 cookies
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups dulce de leche (recipe follows)
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon melted butter
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, more if necessary
½ cup heavy cream, more if necessary
INSTRUCTIONS:
Prepare the dulce de leche. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Prepare cookie dough: Put flour and salt in large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center, and drop in the egg yolks and melted butter. Using your fingers, mix the ingredients together to form into a ball of dough. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead vigorously for 10 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Let dough rest for 10 minutes.
On lightly floured work surface, roll dough to about 1/8 inch think with lightly floured rolling pin. Using a 2-inch cookie cutter or the rim of glass, cut out as many circles as you can from the dough. Gather the scraps together and form them into another ball. Roll dough out again and cut into circles, as with other dough. Repeat until all the dough has been used. Place the circles 1 inch apart on 1 or 2 lightly-greased cookie sheets.
Bake in oven for 10 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly browned. Using a metal spatula, transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool.
Prepare icing: Put 1 cup confectioners’ sugar into asmall bowl, stir in ½ cup heavy cream, a little at a time, and blend well. The icing should coat the spoon lightly. If it seems thin, add a few spoonfuls of confectioners’ sugar; if it is too thick, add a little more cream.
Using a pastry brush, coat the tops of half of the cookies with a thin layer of icing and let dry for 10 minutes.
Spread a thick layer of dulce de leche on the top of the remaining cookies. Place the cookies on top of each other like a sandwich, with the dulce de leche in the center and icing on top.
To serve, stack your alfajores santafecinos on a tray and serve as sweet treats at baptism celebrations and first communion parties.
