Alfajores

A few words about dulce de leche.  If you have a sweet tooth, then you’ll love Argentina.  There are bakeries and candy stores everywhere.   For example, medialunas are the local variation of croissants, often served at their version of afternoon tea, the “merienda,” but sweeter than a regular croissant.

But the sweetest treat of all is dulce de leche.  Sold in jars; as ice cream (my last lunch in Buenos Aires on Saturday consisted solely of two large scoops of dulce de leche ice cream and fizzy water); piped as decoration on other desserts instead of whipped cream; on cakes and tarts; in a large bowl on the hotel’s breakfast buffet.  But, standing at the apex of my newly-found dulce de leche food pyramid has to be the Alfajor.

The alfajor is basically two shortbread-like cookies, generally filled with dulce de leche, covered in chocolate. For New Orleanians, imagine a small Moon Pie with dulce de leche instead of marshallow, and covered in chocolate.  Could be milk chocolate, dark chocolate, or white chocolate.  Could be white AND dark chocolate!  Could have some coconut on the outside.  Could come individually wrapped and sold for less than 1 USD (which is about 200 Argentinian pesos) at every corner store.  Or in boxes of 6 or 12.  We are told that there are only two brands to buy, Cacharaz and Havanna.  

Alfajores have been bought.

Alfajores is the word of the week.