Daring bakers 01-13: gevulde speculaas

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Looks like I’m late for the Daring Bakers post again! This month we made a Dutch confection called gevulde speculaas (stuffed speculaas), which is a sort of cake/cookie filled with almond paste.
The fun thing about this challenge is that we were encouraged to make the spice mix and almond paste from scratch. I even ground the spices and almonds, and it was a great way to try out my new food processor ;D I’m gonna miss the squeezer and juice extractor from my previous processor, but the new one has a nifty coffee grinder which is great for spices.

Cinnamon and ginger not pictured because they were already ground :)

I even got to try out a new spice I didn’t know existed: mace. It’s like the outer part of a nutmeg, so the taste is pretty similar. I had already bought a couple nutmegs as a replacement, but then I noticed it on the baking store I always go to, and I had to get it! I can’t really see the difference, but the mace has a lovely orange color when ground.
The thing I would change about my spice mix is the cardamom which I’ve decided I don’t like. I only added a bit but I was afraid it would ruin my speculaas, though fortunately it wasn’t too noticeable in the end.

The spicy flavor of the speculaas was wonderful, and tasted even better on the following days. However I’m afraid I didn’t like the texture so much. You know I have a thing against almonds, right? They make everything so… chewy. Almond chewy, not chewy chocolate chip cookie chewy. I do like macarons though. I wonder what speculaas macarons would be like :)

You can find the recipe here.

Blog-checking lines: 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!


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