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!
The sepculaas spice required mixing of some exotic spices so aromatic that the overwhelming smell of raw spices itself filled the house. The speculaas spice mandatorily includes cinnamon, ground cloves, mace and ginger and white pepper,cardamom, coriander,anise, nutmeg are the optional spices. Wow, so many spices in one place? I had never heard of mace before and never used nutmeg before in my baking. I found nutmeg (Jaai kaai in Kannada) near my place but it was exciting to figure out which place could be selling mace (jaa patre in Kannada) and I got it in a small store in Jayanagar 9th block. Ooh, it was heady stuff indeed.
I assembled all the spices, even the optional ones, and then ground them each one by one and finally made the spice mix. The final spice mix looked like this:
The recipe for speculaas dough indicated that the dough had to be made in advance and chilled before use. The dough gets better over time so I chilled for a week and made the almond paste just the day before. The dough was too crumbly for me to roll, maybe because I thawed it for a while. So I just patted the dough onto the baking tray and followed the rest of the recipe.
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| Speculaas Dough Ingredients |
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| Speculaas Dough |
Speculaas Spice:
Mandatory:
cinnamon 40 to 60 % of the total amount
ground cloves 1 or 2 parts
mace ½ or 1 part
ginger ½ or 1 part
Optional:
white pepper ½ or 1 part
cardamom ½ or 1 part
coriander ½ or 1 part
anise ½ or 1 part
nutmeg 1 or 2 parts
A convenient way to mix the spices is as follows:
Take at least 1 or 2 teaspoons of ground cloves, ½ or 1 teaspoon of mace and ½ or 1 teaspoon of ginger.
Add to taste ½ or 1 teaspoon of white pepper, ½ or 1 teaspoon of cardamom, ½ or 1 teaspoon of coriander, ½ or 1 teaspoon of anise, and 1 or 2 teaspoons of nutmeg.
Measure or weigh the amount of spices you have now, and add an equal amount of cinnamon.
This method yields at least 4 and at most 18 teaspoons of spices, so if you plan to mix just a few spices, use bigger or more spoons to get a reasonable amount.
Take your time to smell the ingredients individually before you decide how much to add.
Store the spices airtight, dry and dark, they will not spoil for a long time.
Almond Paste:
Ingredients:
7/8 cup (125 gm) raw almonds (or 1-1/3 cups (125 gm) ground almonds)
5/8 cup (125 grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon (3 gm) lemon zest
Directions:
If the raw almonds still have their brown skins, remove them as follows. Bring water to a boil, add the
almonds, cook them for one minute, drain immediately and let cool for a few minutes. Rub them between
your fingers to remove the skins.
Grind the almonds for one or two minutes in a food processor, until you see nothing but very small pieces.
(Or skip this step if you use ground almonds.)
Add the sugar, and grind for another one or two minutes. It must be very fine after this step.
Add the egg and let the food processor combine it - if it is powerful enough. Otherwise you will have to
combine it with your fingers.
Store the almond paste in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Although the flavor gets better as days
pass by, it is not wise to store the paste for too long, as it contains a raw egg. For the same reason you
should not eat the paste unbaked.
Speculaas Dough
Ingredients:
1¾ cups (250 gm) all purpose (plain) flour
1 teaspoon (5 gm) baking powder
¾ cup (150 grams) brown sugar, firmly packed
a pinch salt
2 tablespoons (15 gm) speculaas spices
3/4 cup (175 gm) unsalted butter
Directions:
Put flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and spices in a bowl.
Cut the butter in dices and add.
Knead until smooth.
Feel free to add a little milk if the dough is too dry.
Wrap in clingfoil and put in the refrigerator for two hours.
You can choose to make the dough a few days in advance, just like the almond paste, that will benefit the
flavor. Freezing is no problem.
Assembling and baking the Gevulde Speculaas
Ingredients:
speculaas dough
almond paste
whole almonds without skins for decoration
1 large egg
shallow baking pan, 8x10 inch (20x26 cm) or, round with of diameter 10 inch (26 cm)
Directions:
1. Grease the pan.
2. Preheat the oven to moderate 350°F/180°C.
3. Divide the dough into two portions.
4. Roll out both portions on a lightly floured surface, until they are exactly as big as the baking pan.
5. Put one of the layers in the pan and press it lightly to fill the bottom.
6. Lightly beat the egg with a teaspoon cold water.
7. Smear 1/3 of the egg over the dough in the pan.
8. Roll out the almond paste between two sheets of cling foil, until it is exactly as big as the pan, and
put it on the dough in the pan. (If you chose to make the paste soft, you can smear the paste instead
of rolling it.)
9. Press the paste lightly down to fit in the pan, and smear the next 1/3 of the egg over it.
10. Now put the second layer of dough on top of the paste, press it lightly, and make as smooth as
possible.
11. Smear the last 1/3 of the egg over the dough.
12. Decorate the pastry with the almonds.
13. Bake for 40 minutes in the preheated oven.
14. Let cool completely in the pan, then cut it in portions as you like.
15. If you wrap the stuffed speculaas in cling foil, after it has cooled completely, you can store it a few
days at room temperature.
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