Gevulde Speculaas

This Dutch treat is a thick gingerbread cookie filled with a sweet almond paste. It is usually eaten during the holiday season in December.

Created on 2020-12-13

Estimated time needed: At least 72 minutes. At most 94 minutes.

Ingredients

500 g flour
250 g brown sugar
250 g butter
218 g almonds alternatively use almond flour, and only use a few almonds for decorating
160 g superfine sugar
75 g milk or use buttermilk, kefir or any other more sour milk
20 g speculaas spice mix
16 g baking powder
1.0 egg some of the egg is for an egg wash
0.5 lemon zest

Scaling

Percent %
By ingredient

Timeline

Directions

⌛ Active time 5 minutes | Passive time 5 minutes

  • 200 g almonds | alternatively use almond flour, and only use a few almonds for decorating

Boil and peel the almonds:

Boil the almonds for about 30 seconds if you want to peel them before grinding. Cool in cold water. Peel and let dry.

⌛ Active time 3 minutes

  • 500 g flour
  • 16 g baking powder
  • 250 g brown sugar
  • 250 g butter
  • 20 g speculaas spice mix

Add ingredients to a bowl:

Add the dry ingredients and butter to a bowl. Knead until well combined. The mixture should feel a bit like sand.

⌛ Active time 1 minutes | Passive time 1 minutes

  • 75 g milk | or use buttermilk, kefir or any other more sour milk

Gradually add milk:

Add milk until everything comes together. You might not need all the milk, so be careful and don't add everything at once.

⌛ Active time 1 minutes | Passive time 10 minutes

Knead and cool:

Knead the cookie dough for a few minutes. Shape it into a ball. Cover and let rest in the fridge.

⌛ Active time 6 minutes

Grind the almonds:

Remember to save a few almonds for decorating the top of the cookies. It might be a good idea to roughly chop the almonds before grinding them, depending on what kind of equipment you use to grind the almonds. The grinding is done when the almonds look like a coarse flour.

⌛ Active time 2 minutes

  • 160 g superfine sugar
  • 0.5 egg
  • 0.5 lemon zest

Mix the almond filling ingredients:

Mix the almond flour together with superfine sugar, egg and the lemon zest, until well combined.

⌛ Active time 1 minutes

Prehead the oven:

180 ℃, not convection

⌛ Active time 3 minutes

Shape the almond filling:

Roll out the almond filling to be slightly smaller than the shape you'd like to have. Anything from half a finger to a thumb in thickness is common.

⌛ Active time 6 minutes

Shape the cookie dough:

Take the cookie dough out of the fridge. Divide it into two pieces. Roll out both pieces to be slightly larger than the almond filling shape.

⌛ Active time 3 minutes

Assemble the layers:

If using a pan, put one of the cookie dough layers into the pan (with a baking sheet or butter underneath to prevent it from sticking). Otherwise, put it onto a baking sheet on a baking tray. Cover this cookie dough layer with the almond filling, and put the other piece of cookie dough on top of that. Press around the edges to make the cookie dough layers stick to each other.

⌛ Active time 4 minutes

  • 18 g almonds
  • 0.5 egg | some of the egg is for an egg wash

Decorate with almonds and egg wash:

Cut the almonds into two to make them as flat as possible. Push the half-almonds into to cookie dough, in a pattern you like. Beat the egg, and brush it oven the cookie with almonds.

⌛ Active time 1 minutes | Passive time 40 minutes

Bake:

This should take about 40 minutes, until the cookie has a darker color. It will still be a little soft when it comes out of the oven, and will get harder as it cools down.

⌛ Active time 2 minutes

Cut into pieces while the cookie is still warm:

Optional