Gevulde Speculaas – Dutch Spice Cake

So I seem to be on a bit of a continental kick at the moment. My last post used speculoos spread from Belgium, bought back from France and todays post is a recipe for Dutch spiced caked stuffed with almond paste, called Gevulde Speculaas. Yes Speculoos and Speculaas are basically the same thing but from different regions. Speculaas are from Holland and are spiced cookies, traditionally served on Nicholas’ Eve, but are now available year round. Speculoos are the belgian version and the difference just seems to be less spicing. Gevulde Speculaas translates as filled biscuit and that pretty much sums it up, the biscuit component is more cake like and has a wonderful mix of spices, this is then filled with a soft coarse almond paste. It is supposed to be the height of summer but currently it is pouring down with rain and is sweater worthy cold, so this recipe seemed perfect.

Speculoos and Milk Chocolate Macarons

I joined the Mactweets group back in February and have unfortunately not been very good at posting each month (ive been a bit busy) in fact I posted hardly at all. I just managed to make this batch in time for this month deadline but as per normal I dont really have a link to the theme, which this month was favourite films. Im not sure why but I dont actually have just one favourite film. I love movies I just cant think of one when asked? For my macarons I have been trying to come up with my own recipe for the shells so I had another play around and whilst the results looks pretty good they need a little work texture wise, so I wont publish the recipe just yet. For the filling I decided I wanted to use some of the speculoos spread I brought back from Paris.