Chocolate alfajores

Name: Chocolate alfajores
Prep time: 12 min
Cook time: 23 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Uruguayan
Ingredients: 150g Butter; 70g Sugar; 1 Egg; 25g Honey; 175g All purpose flour; 80g Cornstarch; 30g Unsweetened Cocoa; 1 tsp Baking Powder; 1 tsp Baking Powder; 400g Dulce de leche; 500g Milk Chocolate; 100g Butter; Zest of 1 Orange

By The Spice & Simmer Kitchen · Published May 3, 2026

A one-pot Dessert recipe with Uruguayan flavors, built for busy weeknights when you want real food without a sink full of dishes. Comes together in roughly 50 minutes, serves about 4, and uses ingredients you can find at any normal grocery store. The technique is simple: build a base in your pot, layer in the main ingredients, simmer until everything has had time to talk to each other, and serve straight from the pan. If you're cooking for picky eaters, this one tends to land — the flavors are recognizable, the texture is comforting, and there's nothing weird hiding in the ingredient list. Perfect for the kind of evening where you want dinner on the table by 7pm and the kitchen empty by 7:30.

Ingredients

Makes 4 servings · 35 min total

150g Butter
70g Sugar
1 Egg
25g Honey
175g All Purpose Flour
80g Cornstarch
30g Unsweetened Cocoa
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Powder
400g Dulce De Leche
500g Milk Chocolate
100g Butter
Zest of 1 Orange

Step-by-step instructions

For the cookies cream the butter with the sugar for a few minutes. Then add the egg and honey and mix well. Add flour, cornstarch, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder and mix until you get a dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least half an hour or overnight.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Divide dough into two parts, put one part back in the fridge before using. Roll out second part to about 2 millimeters and cut out round cookies with 5-6 centimeters in diameter. This can be done with a cookie cutter or glass. You should get 30 cookies in total or even more, I get about 40. Bake one baking sheet at the time for about 8-10min. Let cookies cool.
For the filling look for two cookies of the same size and place about one teaspoon of dulce de leche onto the bottom one before sandwiching together.
Chop semi-sweet chocolate and melt with butter and orange zest on low heat. Dunk each sandwich cookie into the chocolate and let cool off on parchment paper before serving.

Why this works on a weeknight

Chocolate alfajores lands at about 35 minutes total — a little longer than our 30-minute target, but most of that time is hands-off simmering, which is why it earned a spot in our Sweet Finishes collection. The technique is forgiving, the ingredient list is grocery-store standard, and the active cooking time is short enough that you can answer a text message in the middle without ruining dinner.

Cleanup notes

This is a single-pan recipe, so the cleanup is exactly one pan, one cutting board, and one knife. While the dish rests, fill the pan with hot soapy water — by the time you are done eating, the residue lifts off with a single pass of a sponge. Skip the steel wool on cast iron; a stiff brush and warm water are all you need to keep the seasoning intact.

Make-ahead and leftovers

Leftovers keep covered in the fridge for up to three days. Reheat in a dry pan over medium-low with a splash of water or stock to loosen the sauce. Chocolate alfajores actually improves overnight as the flavors keep talking to each other, so doubling the recipe and packing tomorrow's lunch is a high-leverage weeknight move.

Filed under 🍮 Sweet Finishes Dessert Uruguayan