Sara was excited for this month's challenge because she really likes speculaas. On the other hand, I hadn't heard of them. Or I thought I hadn't, until I realized that another variation from the one we baked--Speculaasjes, speculaas cookies or "windmill cookies"--were something I enjoyed as a kid. My friend in elementary school, whose Mom was Dutch, would get windmill cookies in her lunch, and if I was lucky, she would share.
But even before I realized that, I knew the recipe looked delicious and was full of things I liked--almonds, lots of spices, and butter. And gevulde speculaas, or "speculaas stuffed with almond paste," were new to both of us Baking JDs.
Sara and I were happy to have found a weekend within our busy schedules where we could get together to bake these (er, unlike December's challenge) and enjoy the series finale of Gossip Girl, our shared guilty pleasure. I made the dough and almond paste a day ahead of time, and confirmed the recipe's deliciousness with repeated tastings of both. After a quick brunch of scrambled eggs and toast, Sara rolled both out, and I made us some coffee.
While the speculaas baked, we enjoyed the terrible terrible, television show that we had come to love, or at least like a lot, most of the time. Although we were eagerly awaiting the speculaas in the oven, we both were very sad not to be enjoying some macarons from Lauduree in tribute to Blair Waldorf.
In the end, we were extremely pleased with our results. Wow. Seriously delicious, and really not all that hard to make.
Thank you, Daring Bakers, for starting off 2013 right with such a tasty challenge.
Francijn of Koken in de Brouwerij was our January 2013 Daring Bakers’ Hostess and she challenged us to make the traditional Dutch pastry, Gevulde Speculaas from scratch! That includes making our own spice mix, almond paste and dough! Delicious!
4 comments:
Where's the recipe for this wonderful looking treat?
How good to read that you enjoyed the speculaas so much :-) And you did a good job too!
The recipe is on the challenge host's blog: http://kokenindebrouwerij.blogspot.com!
From way back I was a fan of those grocery store windmill cookies (don’t judge). That they were a special holiday cookie in Holland or anywhere else never crossed my childhood mind. Not much crossed my childhood mind, actually.Whirl forward in that amazing machine called time-flies. I recently had a craving for that crispy-spicy-gingery-molasses-with-almonds-stuck-in-it windmill cookie. But they had to be gluten-free. It was time to figure out what they were so I could recreate them in the GF Canteen kitchen.
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