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!
Some people go on yo-yo diets while I seem to partake in yo-yo blogging.
It feels like a lot has happened in the past six weeks, but maybe not. Highlights include playing in a band, fracturing/healing a rib, acquiring a boyfriend, turning 31, and the realization that I have an obsession with donuts. D O N U T S .
In the meantime, I’ve been a bad blog mother, partially due to writer’s block, but mostly because of bad planning/time management/laziness.
It’s also been awhile since I last completed a Daring Bakers’ challenge, so the January challenge seemed like a good task for ending this slump. Let’s pretend that this wasn’t supposed to have been posted 8 days ago, shall we?
I’m guessing a lot of you don’t know how to even pronounce Gevulde Speculaas either, but probably concluded that it was related to speculoos, right? If you’re into cookie butter (I’m not), you would love this treat (I do). It’s got all those gingerbready spices in it, yet I don’t really know how to describe it otherwise. Maybe it’s somewhere between a cookie and a bar?
Contrary to the late posting date, I did actually plan ahead for this one and made the almond paste, speculaas spice mix, and dough on the days leading up to the actual baking. It turns out that making almond paste not only tastes better than the pre-made kind, it’s cheaper!
The most challenging part was assembling the thing. Maybe the dough wasn’t moist enough, but it kept crumbling. My solution was to press it into a tart pan, which I was planning to use anyway.
Since I’d never had this dessert before, I really don’t know if it came out as it should have. What matters most is that it tasted good, right? I mean, it looks about how it should based on photos by others. It also made my car smell like Christmas!
If you’d like to make this Dutch treat (ha) yourself, check out the recipe in Francijn’s write-up.
How fancy! I rarely have the patience to make all the ingredients for DB Challenges such as these, so I am impressed you did all this work! It looks like it turned out beautifully, too (at least, to my untrained eye)…a golf-clap for you! :D
PS – Wow a fractured rib? You need to stop rocking SO HARD!
Yours is so dainty and pretty! The tart pan was a great idea!
Welcome back! Happy birthday, congrats, feel better (holy ouch!) and start sharing the donut love girl! :)
Wow, a lot has happened to you in the past couple of weeks! Sorry about the fractured rib, congrats on the band gig and on the boyfriend (!) and Happy Belated Birthday. You did a beautiful job making this speculaas. I’m sure it was fabulous.
Good thing we’re having lunch today, because you’ve been holding out on me!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mary – Yeah, they can be a pain, but making everything for this one wasn’t so bad! Ironically the fracture occurred right before playing some shows with Trans-Siberian…so before rocking out. haha
fortheloveofdessert – Thanks! Donut-making is definitely in the future…
Paula – Thank you! Most of it was eaten, so I guess that’s a good sign.
Julie – ha! Now you know. ;)