In Argentina and Peru alone, there are over 15 varieties of the Alfajores cookie. Sandwiched between the layers is thick and gooey Dulce de Leche that stings your lips. In this dessert, we combine the cookie with clouds of whipped bittersweet chocolate mousse. It’s sure to smolder the flames of any spicy South American meal.

Dark Chocolate Mousse with Alfajores Cookies

Ingredients

For Cookie Dough
1 cup 2 tablespoons corn starch
2 cups 2 oz flour
2 t salt
½ cup ground almonds
½ cup icing sugar
1 ½ pounds butter
lemon zest from 3 lemons
2 t vanilla extract
2 t water

For caramel
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup cream
pinch salt

For Chocolate Mousse
10 oz 82% Valrhona dark chocolate
½ cup 2 tablespoons
3/4 C (9 ea) egg yolks
1 cup sugar
4 cup cream
2 oz honey

For garnish
Powdered sugar to dust the cookies
Fresh berries

Special Equipment
Large pastry bags
Bowl scrapper
Biscuit cutters
Rolling pin
Baking pans
Stainless steel sauce pot

Instructions

For Caramel
Be sure to prepare the caramel first, to allow time for it to set up. Cook the sugar in a stainless steel sauce pot with a little water. When it becomes caramel, slowly pour in the warm cream and whisk. Pour into a shallow pan and chill to set up.

For Chocolate Mousse
Melt the butter and chocolate in a bowl above warm water (do not boil the water, keep it at a very low simmer). Whip the cream to medium peaks and set asid. Heat the egg yolks with the sugar and honey over a bain marie until doubled in volume. Fold the chocolate into the egg mixture and fold the cream into this. Scrape into pastry bags and chill.

For Cookie dough
Combine all dry ingredients by hand and cut in the butter. Mix in the water and vanilla and roll between parchment paper into ¼” thick sheets. Chill, then cut into small discs. Bake at 325 degrees and then chill again. When hot, the cookies are very fragile. When cool, remove from pan with a baby offset spatula and sandwich the caramel between two discs of cookie. Cover with powdered sugar.

To Serve
Pipe the mousse onto a chilled plate and stick an alfajores cookie standing sideways in the side of the mousse. Serve with fresh berries.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 10:55 am and is filed under Sweet Treats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.