Name: Alfajores, peruvian cookies
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 3 h 35 min
Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups flour; 2 1/4 cups cornstarch; 1 cup room temperature butter; 1 cup powdered sugar; 3 egg yolks; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 14 ounces dulce de leche; 1/4 cup grated coconut

I was looking for old posts to share and found a chicken soup post to share, I’m reading it and realized it was from back when I was doing Around the World in 12 Dishes, and it was a Peru dish. It was an interesting flash from the past. It was also probably not a particularly authentic Peruvian dish. I figured I should probably create a better geography lesson for my Peru Unit and add it to my South America Unit and add in that old recipe, so be prepared for some hilarious directions. But, let’s kick off this Peru Unit.

(there are affiliate links in here)

Peru Unit resources

Let’s grab some websites for the fun facts:

And here’s the Geography Now:

I was expecting that to be longer than it was.

Then the Flag Friday.

I’ll be watching these as I write the post in the background, as soon as I finish the current video playing the background.

Yes, I am one of those people who have stuff playing in the background as I work.

Peru books

Okay, I’m going to start off with saying, I haven’t read these yet. Most were checked out when we initially studied Peru, and so I need to go grab them later on to skim them and give my opinions.

Peru– a general book covering the country
Fourteen monkeys: a rain forest rhyme– a rhyming book talking about how 14 different species can all exist in the same forest
A maleta full of treasures– I love books like this where a relative visits America and brings their country and life to learn about and the child tries to send her world back with her grandma
Martin de Porres: the rose in the desert– the story of a Peruvian saint, a mulatto who overcame the prejudice of his birth to become a priest
Run, Little Chaski!: an Inka trail adventure– set in the Incan empire as the messenger brings news around the empire
Zonia’s rain forest– the story of a young girl from the Ashaninka tribe
Lost city: the discovery of Machu Picchu– an interesting book on how the lost city was found, but aimed more towards 3/4 grade
Benita and the night creatures– an interesting way to bring in traditional tales (the scary creatures trying to scare the girl) while showing we don’t have to be afraid

Okay, that’s all of my books, there are some really interesting books in there.

Peru Unit: original recipe

I turn you over to Past Ticia 2014:

As I looked through the recipes for Peru I wasn’t noticing something that was jumping out at me, then I saw Peruvian Chicken Soup, and that looked good. Very good, especially on that cold January morning as I looked out at a layer of frost while the rest of the country was looking at 2 feet of snow.

Supplies for Easy Chicken Soup:

3-4 chicken breasts (future Ticia 2025 will point out you could use 2 canned chickens drained or about 3 cups of cooked chopped chicken if you freeze cooked chicken, like I do now), 2 Chicken Broth,32-Ounce (or 3-4 jars of homemade broth), Rotel Tomato & Green Chilies, Diced, 10-Ounce Cans, 3 smallish golden potatoes (we added 4 and it was overwhelming), 1/2 cup rice (more on this later)

How to make easy chicken soup

1. Set your poor over-worked kids to peeling the potatoes, one a kid in my case. (We like this OXO Good Grips Swivel Peeler {affiliate link}, the kids don’t scrape their knuckles as much with it)

2. Meanwhile chop up the chicken and grill it (the picture turned out blurry, waaaahh).

3. While chicken is grilling chop up potatoes.

4. Start simmering the chicken broth, add the potatoes, and Rotel. When the potatoes are starting to get soft add the chicken. If you are adding rice, now would be the time.

* Jeff and I got into a discussion about the rice after the fact, he would leave out the rice and just do the potatoes, I would put in the rice and leave out the potatoes, which reveals our various feelings on potato vs. rice, more than the meal. We discovered we had too much “stuff” not enough broth, so it was a big discussion on how to best rectify this.

5. Add in chicken a few minutes before eating.

In the end, the kids enjoyed it, but thought it might be a little spicy at times. We got a lot of these faces as it was cooking. On the other hand, Jeff and I really enjoyed it, and were thinking of different ways to make it again, only BETTER, BIGGER, okay not really bigger. But, we were thinking some HEB chicken fajita meat would be wonderful in this.

Future Ticia 2025 is reading this as we’ve got a cold front coming in and this sounds delicious to make right now.

But, now on to the actual recipe we made for our Peru Unit.

Peru Unit recipe: alfajores

Okay, let’s get into the actual recipe I did make later on, and why I thoroughly enjoyed this excuse to have way too much sugar.

Alfajores ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour
2 1/4 cups cornstarch
1 cup room temperature butter
1 cup powdered sugar
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
14 ounces dulce de leche
1/4 cup grated coconut

Mixing this all together

In a bowl, mix the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder.
Cream together the butter and powdered sugar. Slowly mix in the egg yolks and the vanilla. Beat for 1 minute.
Slowly mix in the flour mixture until a thick dough is formed.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-3 hours.
Remove from refrigerator and preheat the oven to 350 F.
Roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness cut it out and place it on a lined cookie sheet.
Place on rack to cool.
When alfajores are cool, spread the dulce de leche on the base of a cookie, and place another on top to form a sandwich. Repeat with the rest to form a sandwich, and roll the edges in the grated coconut if desired.

Alfajores, peruvian cookies

This shortbread-like cookie is delicious with the dulce de leche filling.

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes

Additional Time 3 hours

Total Time 3 hours 35 minutes

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour
2 1/4 cups cornstarch
1 cup room temperature butter
1 cup powdered sugar
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
14 ounces dulce de leche
1/4 cup grated coconut

Instructions

In a bowl, mix the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder.
Cream together the butter and powdered sugar. Slowly mix in the egg yolks and the vanilla. Beat for 1 minute.
Slowly mix in the flour mixture until a thick dough is formed.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-3 hours.
Remove from refrigerator and preheat the oven to 350 F.
Roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness cut it out and place it on a lined cookie sheet.
Place on rack to cool.
When alfajores are cool, spread the dulce de leche on the base of a cookie, and place another on top to form a sandwich. Repeat with the rest to form a sandwich, and roll the edges in the grated coconut if desired.

The recipe is delicious, but it’s tricky to roll out, I wonder if I substituted the powdered sugar for regular sugar if that would make it a little easier to roll out and construct the cookies.

Peru Unit notebooking pages

We used the South America notebooking pages and filled them out. There are so many unique animals in the country, we could easily have created loads of animals for that, and I should have made a Machu Pichu minibook.

My favorite facts for Peru:

The Incan Empire- which did not invent the wheel, never found iron, or the arch, but had a HUGE empire
Lake Titicaca which si fun to say
The Titicaca floating village
They have a scissors dance!
The Paracas skulls, which have an entire conspiracy theory around them

More learning fun

Since I’m pulling in a post from 10 years ago, let’s pull up some elementary ideas

Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Peru Unit