Queen Máxima Bakes Cookies for Her Birthday, and This Is Her Recipe
What brie is to the French, suikerbrood is to oprjochter Frisians, and stroopwafels are to everyone who has lived in Gouda, alfajores are to Argentinians. Máxima baked her favorite cookies for her birthday, and dunking cookies will never be the same again.
Those alfajores have a long history. They originally come from Spain, where they were introduced by the Moors – most Spanish words that begin with ‘al’ have an Arabic background. The colonists took their cookies with them to South America. In Peru, the cookies were popular among the Spanish conquistadors. But these cookies are merely a shadow of the wildly popular Argentine version: no more honey and almonds, as in the original version, but sweet, thick fillings made with, for example, chocolate and, of course, the iconic dulce de leche. Fortunately, the queen shared her recipe on Instagram, so we can all taste along with her.
Thick, sticky caramel sauce
Want to make your own dulce de leche? Incredibly easy. You need one or two cans of condensed milk, which you place under water in a saucepan. Let them boil for three hours – yes, with the cans and all – and then let them cool. Open the can and you won’t believe your eyes: deliciously thick, sticky caramel sauce.
How to make alfajores de dulce de leche
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients with the softened butter in a bowl. Add the egg yolks and cognac and knead by hand until you have a firm dough. Shape it into a ball and leave it to rest for about an hour. Sometimes the dough seems as if it won’t stick together; in that case, add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice!
- Roll out the dough into a sheet 5 mm to 7 mm thick and cut out rounds of dough (using a glass) approximately 4 cm in diameter. Then place the rounds on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, about 2 cm apart.
- Bake the cookies for 10–12 minutes at 160 degrees. The cookies should brown slightly, but not too much, otherwise they will become too dry and break.
- When the cookies are ready, remove them from the oven and let them cool. Sandwich two cookies together with a layer of dulce de leche. Spread the dulce de leche all the way to the edge. Then roll those edges through the grated coconut.
