Argentine Alfajores

A filled cookie sandwich with relatives across two continents

The basic idea — two cookies or cake layers sandwiching a sweet filling — has counterparts well beyond Argentina. The American Moon Pie sandwiches marshmallow between graham cookies and coats the whole thing in chocolate; the whoopie pie does something similar with soft cake rounds and a fluffy filling. What sets the alfajor apart is the filling itself: dulce de leche, a slow-caramelized milk preserve that Argentina and Uruguay both claim to have invented, giving the alfajor a deeper, milkier sweetness than either of its American cousins.

The cornstarch-based shortbread used here also behaves differently from a typical cookie dough — it stays pale even fully baked, and turns crumbly rather than crisp, a texture built specifically to contrast with the dense dulce de leche filling.

History

Alfajores are small sweet sandwiches made of two thin, delicate shortbread cookies, often based on cornstarch, filled with a thick layer of dulce de leche (caramelized milk jam), sometimes rolled along the edges in shredded coconut or fully coated in chocolate. The name and the very concept of the filled cookie come from Spain, where the Moors had introduced similar honey-and-spice sweets in the Middle Ages, before the Arabic word “al-hasú” (the filling, the stuffing) gave rise to the Spanish term “alfajor.”

Brought to South America by Spanish colonists, the recipe evolved considerably on-site with the introduction of dulce de leche, an iconic invention of the Río de la Plata claimed by both Argentina and Uruguay. Today, the alfajor appears in nearly every Latin American country with distinct regional variations, but Argentina has turned it into a true national institution, produced industrially by dozens of brands and consumed in considerable quantities every year.

Ingredients — for 12 pieces

• 200 g (1⅔ cups) cornstarch, 100 g (¾ cup) flour
• 150 g (⅔ cup) butter, 100 g (¾ cup) powdered sugar
• 3 egg yolks, baking powder, lemon zest
• 300 g (1 cup) dulce de leche
• Shredded coconut, for finishing

Step-by-step Argentine alfajores recipe

1. Mix the softened butter and powdered sugar until creamy.
2. Add the egg yolks, then the cornstarch, flour, baking powder, and lemon zest, without overworking the dough.
3. Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes before rolling it out to 5 mm (¼ inch) thick.
4. Cut out even rounds with a cookie cutter and bake at 350°F (180°C) until just barely golden at the edges.
5. Let the cookies cool completely before handling, as they remain very fragile while warm.
6. Spread one cookie with a thick layer of dulce de leche, close with a second cookie, and roll the edges in shredded coconut.

Cooking Method

Technique: a short bake at moderate oven temperature for cookies that are both tender and firm, never browned, and handled only once fully cooled.

Traditional equipment: standard-sized round cookie cutters, a buttered baking sheet.

Signs to watch for: cornstarch shortbread should stay very pale when baked; noticeable browning means they’re overbaked and will turn brittle.

Nutrition, per piece

Calculated from the raw ingredient quantities above, divided across twelve pieces.

Saturated fat is proportionally high here, at 10 g out of 15 g total — both the butter in the shortbread and the dulce de leche filling contribute dairy fat, with almost none of it unsaturated. Carbohydrate, at 45 g per piece, comes overwhelmingly from the dulce de leche and sugar rather than from the cornstarch-based dough itself.

Economic context

No 2024 country-level figure for Argentina is available in this dataset — the most recent recorded data point is from 2017 — so the regional average for Latin America & Caribbean is used here instead. Alfajores themselves are an everyday, industrially produced snack in Argentina, sold individually wrapped at nearly every kiosk and supermarket checkout, closer in role to a candy bar than a special-occasion pastry.

Source: World Bank / FAO, Food Prices for Nutrition database (Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet) v4.0, 2024 data, CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.57966/41AN-KY81. Retrieved 29 July 2026. This figure describes the cost of a healthy diet in the Latin America & Caribbean region generally — it is not a costing of this specific recipe.

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