Meet the 'Argentinian Willy Wonka' Crafting Buenos Aires' Beloved Biscuits

“I was 21 when I first did it, and it was a total disaster,” Gustavo says, rolling up his sleeves and revealing a tattoo of a whisk on his forearm. “But I did it more and more and got better. Now, just one dose is pure love.” Pastry chef Gustavo Nari’s first attempt at making alfajores might not have worked out, but fast-forward 30 years and he is, in his own words, “the Argentinian Willy Wonka”.

I’m in the kitchen of Confitería La Ideal, in downtown Buenos Aires. Beneath a stained-glass cupola and chandeliers, the belle époque restaurant is filled with pastries and chocolates, the opulent backdrop to Gustavo’s monthly alfajor-making class. “The alfajor is more than just two pieces of biscuit stuck together with dulce de leche,” he says, showing me how to knead dough. “It’s practically a national cult, a daily ritual and a federal passion.”

In its purest form, an alfajor is just shortcrust cornstarch pastry combined with Argentina’s beloved dulce de leche, a thick, creamy caramel-like spread whose name literally translates as ‘sweet of milk’. Traditionally, the biscuit sandwich is either coated in chocolate or prepared maicena style: a dulce de leche
plain biscuit sandwich with edges rolled in shredded coconut.

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Alfajores are so entwined in Argentine DNA that a reported 12 million of the biscuits are consumed daily, nationwide. There are numerous brands, and they’re sold at street kiosks on every corner, in gift shops next to souvenir socks emblazoned with the faces of football legends Messi and Maradona, and at bakeries and at cafes like Confitería La Ideal.

“Alfajor is as Argentine as yerba mate or asado,” Gustavo says, noting Argentina’s traditional herbal drink and its ubiquitous barbecue culture. “But the word actually comes from the Arabic word al-hasu, meaning ‘the filling’.”

The earliest recorded alfajores used a paste of almonds, nuts and honey, brought to Spain during the Arabic invasion in the 8th century, Gustavo tells me as he loads two biscuits with dulce de leche from a piping bag. He hands it to me and I squeeze a generous splodge of the deep-golden caramel onto a shortbread. It’s denser than I imagined, resisting the squish as I press the two biscuits together, before oozing out the sides. Gustavo shows me how to shave off the excess with a tiny cake knife, before rolling the alfajor in a bed of shredded coconut.

Originating in 8th-century Moorish North Africa, the confection was brought to the Americas by the Spanish in the 1500s, where it underwent a metamorphosis. Honey gave way to dulce de leche, and over time, each region of Argentina put its own spin on it.

Gustavo makes seven varieties, including maicena-style, pistachio and white chocolate. Today, he’s busy making alfajores marplatenses, a version from the coastal city of Mar del Plata. The chocolate-flavoured biscuits have a hint of orange zest, sandwiched with dulce de leche and encased in chocolate.

Soon, the kitchen smells of chocolatey dough and caramel, and I’m eager for a taste. But the best alfajor needs to sit for two or three days before it’s ready to eat. Instead, I sample one from a variety box of miniatures — a pistachio version whose filling is dangerously gooey and subtly sweet. “Try them all,” Gustavo bids me as I leave. “I have two every single day.”

Tasting Tradition

The following morning, I seek out my next quota in La Boca, a gritty, portside neighbourhood in the south east of Buenos Aires. It was shaped by generations of immigrants, many of them Italian, who settled here in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Boca’s brightly coloured corrugated-metal houses sit alongside souvenir shops selling the distinctive blue-and-yellow merchandise of local football team, South American giants Boca Juniors. Here, I find shop-cafe Cachafaz, one of Argentina’s best-known alfajor manufacturers.

“You eat alfajores at different moments of your life,” says Cachafaz CEO Claudio Conti, as we sit at a table outside, beneath a neon sign shaped like the snack. “Maybe you give a box to the girl you love or put one in your pocket as you head out to school,” he says, as reggaeton and cumbia music fill the air from nearby stalls.

Cachafaz ­— a family company founded by three brothers in 2001 ­— sells four million alfajores a month. Claudio presents me with the most popular varieties: negro, the classic covered in chocolate; maicena; and masa de almendras, made partly with almond paste. I try one of each: sweet, crunchy, creamy, all are loaded with dulce de leche. My favourite, the maicena, is the most traditional: a plain shortbread that crumbles at first bite. The caramel isn’t overly sweet, and the shredded coconut is fresh, far from the synthetic equivalent common to chocolate bars.

As we leave, Claudio hands me a souvenir jar of dulce de leche. “This is to Argentinians what peanut butter and jelly is to Americans,” he says as we exit past a balcony above the shop, where a statue of Lionel Messi holding the World Cup overlooks La Boca. His coach, apparently, would give him an alfajor for every goal he scored as a child. “A kid will have it with milk, or a grown man with whisky,” says Claudio. “It’s an accessible treat and it’s for everyone.”

An Icon Evolves

Pastry chef Olivia Saal isn’t afraid to meddle with tradition. At Oli, her stylish all-day cafe-bistro in the leafy neighbourhood of Palermo Hollywood, alfajores are something of a moving target. She changes flavours regularly, even serving it as an ice-cream sandwich with a semi-freddo dulce de leche.

When I meet Olivia, the version on offer is made with buckwheat and tangerine zest, dipped in chocolate and crowned with a sugared walnut. “Every cafe has their own type of alfajor,” she says. “For me, the most important thing is when you bite into it, the crust and filling, just like a macaron, melt into one.”

Baking is now the backbone of Olivia’s daily life, but this wasn’t always the case. Born in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, she had her sights set on film production and first turned to baking to fund her projects. But pastry, it seems, stuck. She went on to study at Le Cordon Bleu in London and work with her mentor, Fernando Trocca, one of Argentina’s best-known chefs.

I’m handed two irresistible walnut alfajores. They’re lightly salty and luxuriantly creamy, the sugared nut enriching the sweetness. “Enjoy,” Olivia calls, as I savour my final alfajor. “You’re biting into an icon of Buenos Aires.”