Keeping my house warm this winter hasn’t been an issue. With ALL THAT COOKIE BAKING!

More specifically, with the making of over 60 alfajores!

Alfajores are very popular crumbly cookie sandwiches original from Argentina, that is filled with either dulce de leche, chocolate and many other flavors. They are delightful because once you bite into them, they sort of melt in your mouth!

How did I end up with so many of them? I think I mistakenly made double the amount of dough that I needed for these beauties. But hey, salted dulce de leche, ginger, warm kitchen, what’s not to like?

One of the best parts of these alfajores recipe, besides eating them and gifting them to other people to share joy, was learning how to make my own dulce de leche. I’ve made it the really-lengthy way using whole milk and sugar, by using Smitten Kitchen’s amazing method, but I found out a secret shortcut: you just need to boil sweet condensed milk!

To tell you the truth, I was a bit skeptic at first about the dulce de leche making process, but after using just one sealed can of sweet condensed milk and 2-3 hours of re-filling a pot of boiling water, the condensed milk magically turned into dulce de leche! So yeah, you can either spend 4 hours or so constantly mixing boiling milk or just leave your can of condensed milk in a pot with water and just refill every once in a while.

Anyways, let’s focus on the cookies now….

They feature a punch of ginger. Very festive of them, I know! Alfajores are traditionally consumed during the Christmas season in the South of Spain, and that’s where I got the idea of including ginger in the dough.

I also wanted to play with the sweet and salty combo and thus I added sea salt to the creamy dulce de leche inside. Add to that the soft, powdery crumbliness of the alfajor dough, and you have my friends an addictive treat. Overall, a very much recommended baking project for the season!

Tips for making delicious ginger alfajores

• If you can’t find dulce de leche you can make your own by boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk. It takes about 2 hours, but it’s as delicious as dulce de leche or cajeta from the store
• If you don’t have a cookie cutter, you can use a shot glass. Just remember to flour the border before cutting the alfajores
• Flour generously the working surface and the rolling pin, so that your dough doesn’t stick to them

What you need to make ginger alfajores

If you’re into cookies and baking, it’s almost sure that you’ll have most of the gear you need for alfajores. Still, check the list below for recommended equipment:

• Cookie cutter
• Rolling pin
• Baking tray
• Hand mixer

Hope you bake, eat and be merry!

Find all the ingredients and the detailed recipe below.

If you liked this salted dulce de leche and ginger alfajores recipe, you might like some of my other recipes too.

And remember, if you try this recipe and want to share your pictures, tag me @lacooquette on Instagram. I’d love to share your photos on my IG stories.

Note

We published this recipe originally on December 16, 2014. This recipe was part of the first Food Blogger Cookie Swap, and it was quite exciting for us.

I was so excited because I participated in my 1st Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap – a fun and enormous cookie swap among 600+ food bloggers in the US and the world!) that was started 4 years ago by Lindsay from Love and Olive Oil and Julie from The Little Kitchen – this year we helped the Cookies for Kids’ Cancer cause!

Back then we received some really yummy and very Chunky Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Cookies from More Savory, Less Sweet and Lemon Crinkle cookies from Kristie at Creative Touch. With their batches and my batches, my house looked like a cookie bakery.