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.

My Nana’s Christmas Cake

I’m dedicating this week to traditional Christmas recipes and I thought that since I regularly post recipes from other people books and blogs it was about time I posted another of mine. This is another family recipe courtesy of my maternal Grandmother. I never had the chance to eat this as made by my Nana but I have been eating this every year courtesy of my Mum. You are supposed to make this cake as early as possible and the original recipe says it should be baked as early as September. Unfortunately in our house things tend to get on top of us and we don’t normally manage it till the start of December. Last year due to our delayed kitchen redecoration we couldn’t actually make the cake until a couple of days before the big day, this year we a manged to get it done by  the 12th.