In Holland we celebrate something called sinterklaas around the 5th of December. It is similar to christmas in a way with an exchange of gifts etc. There are also certain kinds of sweets we eat around this time of year. For a small get together with friends I made some of the more traditional sinterklaas sweets:
First up: kruidnoten (also referred to as pepernoten, althoug this is incorrect). They are little round cookie type sweets, flavoured with speculaas (a combination of cinnamon, ginger, cardamon, nutmeg, white pepper and cloves).
'Speculaas' is the name of the spice as well as the biscuit. A popular version of this sweet is the 'filled speculaas' - it is the speculaas cookie with almond paste as filling (the same stuff found in stollen). Here is my version:
So it consists of a layer of speculaas cookie, then a layer of almond paste (mixed with a bit of egg) and then another layer of speculaas.
Put some almonds on top to decorate, and voila!
And finally, another treat is the 'banket staaf', made of puff pastry and almond paste. Made into the shape of an 's' for 'sinterklaas'.
Once baked it looks like this! So we topped off our evening with a trio of filled speculaas, banket staaf, and de-licious green tea scones with white chocolate made by a good friend. Wowie!
Almost christmas now, I wonder what lovely treats we have in store...
XOXO Jennifer
0 comments:
Post a Comment