From Argentina With Love

Heart-shaped Alfajores for Valentine's Day--Alfajores en forma de Corazon por el Dia de San Valentin

Valentine's Day--you can love it or hate it.  We've all gone through Valentine's Days alone or heart-broken, Valentine's Day days head-over-heels, Valentine's Days spent with girlfriends on the couch watching a weeper or out to dinner ignoring the holiday.  Even earlier, most of us suffered the unforgettable heady yet awkward exchange of Valentines in class. (The one when you're hoping that your crush returns your feelings as you slip your Strawberry Shortcake/StarWars card into the paper bag decorated in class).

In our household, Valentine's Day is always a mixed bag.  One year it was celebrated with a heart-shaped diamond necklace (before marriage and kids), the next it was forgotten altogether.  It's been quasi-celebrated with a quick dinner out while leaving the (then) baby with a sitter, and spent apart while one of us was on a business trip.  And it has also been celebrated with kids--not an over-done, romantic dinner, mind you, but a fun, family celebration, demonstrating as we do in a thousand small ways daily, our love for each other.  We light candles and use little Valentine's napkins, and eat these for dessert.  Esteban loves any occasion to celebrate!

This heart-shaped alfajor is just perfect for that type of casual dinner, whether your sweetheart is 4 or 40 (or 4 months old, as it were).  

I made these to share this weekend with friends for dinner (actually, in a romantic and uncharacteristic moment, the men did the assembly.  It was made with a jar of homemade dulce de leche from our hosts, another American/Argentinean couple, the van Halls.) Esteban's pre-school teachers are also getting a couple, in a decorative bag tied with a red bow.  

So whether you are celebrating the day of 'Amor y Amistad' in grand style, or at home with the family, we wish you the best the day can bring!

Alfajores

This recipe for alfajores is adapted from the book, Argentina Cooks! by Shirley Lomax Brooks

1 3/4 cups flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 pound butter (1 stick) at room temperature

1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)

4 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 recipe for dulce de leche (or one jar of it)

1 cup grated and sweetened coconut (optional)

Combine flour, salt, sugar and baking soda in a bowl. Cut the butter in with two knives, then mix by hand until well incorporated. Work in the lemon zest and then mix in the egg yolks, egg and vanilla. (Alternatively, you can do this in a food processor, fitted with the dough blade.) The dough will be soft and slightly sticky.  Shape the dough into 2 balls, wrap in plastic, and chill for 2 hours. 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. On a floured work surface, roll out each ball of dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch.  ( I used lots of extra flour to get the dough to be pliable, not too sticky, and easy to cut.) Cut into 2-inch rounds (or use a heart-shaped cutter) and transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until done. The cookies will be dry but not brown. 

When the cookies are cool, spread a generous spoonful of dulce de leche in one cookie and top it with another. Press together gently and smooth any squished-out dulce de leche with a pastry knife, or add a bit of extra so the  coconut will have a good smooth surface to adhere to. Roll the seam of each sandwiched cookie in shredded coconut. (I used Bob's Red Mill shredded unsweetened coconut, purchased from Whole Foods.)

 

Alfajores Mendocinos--Mendoza Style Alfajores

I've eaten my fair share of alfajores, I'll confess that now. Two buttery cookies sandwiched with gooey dulce de leche, then rolled in coconut along the edges, dipped in a bath of white or dark chocolate, or simply dusted in a blanket confectioner's sugar--who among us can resist such a sweet?

But I thought all alfajores were pretty much the same--with more or less the aforementioned combination. That is, until Katie at Seashells and Sunflowers invited a group of bloggers (myself included) to participate in a round up of Regional Alfajores.

As it turns out, every region has its own twist on the traditional alfajor--there are Alfajores Marplatenses from the coastal Buenos Aires province and the area around Mar del Plata--represented by Katie, who followed her sweetheart from the U.S. to Necochea. Aledys, who followed her sweetheart to the Netherlands and writes her blog, From Argentina to the Netherlands, For Love! writes about Alfajores Cordobeses, hailing from her home province of Cordoba. Meag at A Domestic Disturbance is writing about the alfajor from the province of Santa Fe, Alfajores Santafesinos, while Ana from Ana Travels writes about Alfajores de Maicena, and Paula from Bee My Chef (she's also a contributor at Buenos Aires Foodies) made Alfajores Salteños from the province of Salta. Please visit my fellow contributor's blogs to see their delicious riffs on the regional alfajor!

As for the Alfajor Mendocino, in digging around I found a number of unique takes on 'traditional' alfajores. Some were made in a rectangular shape, filled with strawberry jam, some with arrope, a honey syrup, and some dipped in white chocolate--very different from the usual idea of alfajores.

The most typical alfajor from the province of Mendoza is infused with just a hint of anise, filled with sticky dulce de leche, and coated with a sugary meringue called baño blanco. I love the adaptations of this cookie whose origins go as far back as the Moorish occupation of Spain, and I hope you enjoy this version, as well as the regional alfajores of my fellow bloggers!

Alfajores Mendocinos

Mendoza-Style Alfajores

This recipe makes about 2 dozen small (2-inch) or 1 dozen large (3-inch) alfajores. The dough can easily be doubled, and the baño blanco makes enough to cover 4 dozen small alfajores. I made these bite-sized alfajores using the rim of an egg cup, you can use a juice glass or any size round cookie cutter. The dough freezes well for up to 2 months, and the prepared alfajores can be stored in an air-tight container for about a week.

For the cookies:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

a pinch of salt

3 eggs

3 eggs, separated (reserve 2 of the whites for making the baño blanco)

2 tablespoons anisette (anise liqueur)

2 tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup dulce de leche (homemade or storebought)

cooking spray or additional butter for cookie sheets

For the baño blanco:

1/2 cup water

2 cups sugar

2 eggs, whites only

In a medium mixing bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt together. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, yolks, butter, anisette and sugar. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry, and stir until a uniform dough has been made. Form the dough into a ball (it will be sticky), wrap in saran wrap, and refrigerate for at least a half hour or up to overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Using cooking spray or butter, grease a cookie sheet. Generously flour a countertop or work surface and roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick. If the dough is sticking to the counter, remove the dough, put down more flour, and roll out the dough again.

Using a round cutter, (egg cup or juice glass also work) cut the cookie rounds out of the dough and put them on the baking sheet. Ball up the remaining dough and repeat the rolling and cutting process until the dough has been used up. If you fill a cookie sheet and put it in to bake and have dough leftover, replace the dough into the refrigerator until you roll it out and bake it. (This keeps the dough from rising too much). Put the cookies in the oven and bake for 10 minutes (maybe 12 minutes if you are making the larger sized cookies.) They should not brown on the bottom or edges, but they should be dry on top when you tap them. Remove to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Fill a pastry bag with the dulce de leche (or just smear about a teaspoon or more onto a cookie) and pipe a heaping teaspoon of dulce de leche onto one cookie. Place another cookie on top, making sandwiching the two cookies with the dulce de leche in between.

To make the baño blanco, combine the sugar and the water in a small sauce pan and heat over medium-high heat until it reaches a boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar in the water, and continue to boil until the sugar syrup thickens slightly, about ten minutes. When spooned, it should be thick enough to create a 'thread' of syrup drizzling back into the pan, but not thick enough to be caramelized.

Meanwhile, beat the reserved egg whites with a beater on medium high speed until they stiffen slightly and are white and fluffy, about three to five minutes. When the sugar syrup is to the right consistency, slowly drizzle it into the bowl with the egg whites, beating continuously. You will have a glossy creamy meringue. It shouldn't be stiff, rather, able to be painted on to the alfajores. Using a pastry brush, paint the outside of the alfajores with the meringue. Set on a cookie sheet or work surface lined with wax paper and let dry for several hours.or overnight. The baño blanco will eventually be a dry crust on the outside of the alfajores.

Alfajores de Maicena--Dulce de Leche Cornstarch Shortbread Cookies

Today I want to take you to Mendoza's Peotonal--the cafe-lined pedestrian mall near the Plaza Independencia; to sample the Alfajores at Havanna.  Havanna is Argentina's oldest and best-known producer of alfajores, the shortbread-like sandwich cookie filled with gooey, sweet dulce de leche.  At the Havanna cafe, visitors spend long afternoon hours sipping cortitos con leche with a seltzer on the side, smoking, laughing, talking politics--and eating the company's famed cookies.  The cafe tables are lined up in rows on the wide sidewalk, shaded by trees and blooming red umbrellas that look like poppies.  Like a trip to the glamorous era of Fellini films, guests sit in director chairs with 'HAVANNA' written across the canvas back.

Pastelitos de 25 de mayo--Pastries for May 25th

"Are you going to make pastelitos this year?"  Guillermo asks as we're driving down the street near home.  He's driving,.  Maybe it's the recent greening of everything (Spring always makes me sentimental)...it's one of those rare moments that he takes a walk (or a drive) down memory lane.

"Well, are you going to teach me?" I ask him.  It's funny--if creating this blog and being married to a 'foreigner', experimenting with unfamiliar recipes has taught me anything at all, it's to get over my fear of the unknown.  Still, I'm afraid of pastelitos. 

"I remember selling them door-to-door as a kid, by the dozen!"  He says, pronouncing the word dozen as 'DOH-sen' in an oh-so-adorable way.  "Yeah!  Like how you guys have, your, you know, lemonade (lay-mohn-AIDE) stands!  And then we would raise money for a school trip."

I'm trying to picture him, with the toothy smile I've seen in so many school pictures, selling pastelitos del 25 de mayo door-to-door.  And I imagine the real behind-the-scenes work done by my mother-in-law, Florencia, who must have lined up squares of puff pastry dough across the countertop like a mini-pastelitos assembly-line.

The story of the origins of pastelitos del 25 de mayo, like Guillermo's memory of selling them door-to-door, is one of those school-age lessons that fades with time.  (Much like my own foggy 5th grade memory of the facts of the American Revolution.) 

May 25th in Argentina was the first meeting of the minds that decided to oust then-Viceroy of Spain, Hidalgo de Cisneros, back in 1810.  Somehow, a woman selling these little fried pastries in the street became the mascot of the holiday, and the tradition lives on.

And what a tradition:  A square of quince paste, wrapped up in a won-ton-esque pastry, fried, and then drizzled in sweet syrup and topped with sprinkles.  Barely bigger than bite-size, they are larger than life.  Sweet, but not too sweet, and heart-stopping fried puff pastry.  But its simple flavor somehow unlocked so much more than that--for Guillermo, a taste--and he was transported back to another era--1810, or the innocent days of the lemonade stand...by the DOH-sen.

 
Pastelitos del 25 de mayo

Pastries For May 25th

1 package La Salteña tapas for Pastelitos, or 24 small squares of puff pastry (the size of square won-ton wrappers) or 24 won-ton wrappers (which don't have the same yummy puff-pastry effect, but get the job done!)

6 0z. quince paste (available at Whole Foods or at most Latin Markets, also called Dulce de Membrillo)

canola oil, for frying

small cup of water, for sealing the edges

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

sprinkles for cake decorating

Lay out several  tapas on the counter.  Place a smallish square of quince paste in the center of each square.  Moisten the area around  the quince paste and also the edges around the square with water on your fingertip.  Take a second pastry square and place it over the first one, press lightly around the quince to create a seal and then around the edges of the square, sealing again.  Take the two diagonal corners over the index finger of each hand and meet them in the center, making a boat shape.  Repeat with the other remaining corners.  The result is all four corners neatly meeting in the center, much like a crab-cheese wonton.

Heat 3/4 inch of canola oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Place four of the pastelitos  in, letting the oil bubble, for a couple of minutes each side, until the shell has turned golden brown.  Using tongs, turn the pastries until each side is equally golden.  Remove to a paper-towel lined plate.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat the sugar and the water until the suagr has dissolved.  Let thicken slightly, but not brown.  Remove from heat.  Using a spoon, drizzle the syrup over the top of the pastelitos and the sprinkle with sprinkles.  Eat with abandon.

Step-by-step assembly photos available on my flickr photostream, From Argentina With Love

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