Dutch filled spice biscuit

A few life changing events have pulled me away from blogging over the last year and a half....
We got married and had our beautiful son!
Both fairly time consuming, life changing, wonderful, big things that, in combination with a fulltime job, left me with no time to blog. I am trying to pick up my creative activities, combining it with being a mom...a challenge I can tell you, but the most wonderful one I can imagine.

This is the second time I've made this biscuit, and it's again a big success. A very traditional recipe we make (or buy) around Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Thanksgiving basically.
On the 5th of December Santaclaus: Sinterklaas, together with his helpers, comes to bring us presents and candy and we all drink hot chocolate and eat erwtensoup.

See Wikipedia for a better explenation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

It's a spicy, cinnamon, full-christmas-flavoured biscuit filled with rich almond goodness.

makes 30 pcs

Ingredients:

for the dough:

200gr flower (any type you like)

100 gr sugar

2 tablespoons of mixed christmas spice (speculaaskruiden) *

a pinch of salt

150 gr cold butter in cubes

2 tablespoons of milk

for the filling:

150 gr of peeled almonds

150 gr cane sugar

zest of 1 lemon

1 egg

for the finishing:

1 egg

30 peeled almonds

* To mix your own Speculaaskruiden mix:

4 tsp Cinnamon

2 tsp ground cardemom

2 tsp ground coriander ( ketoembar)

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground clove

To convert grams into other units: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/conversions/grams/grams-to-cups-conversions

Start making the filling two days in advance (preferably). grind the almonds with the sugar and the lemon zest till it sticks together and is a fairly fine structure, you can add a bit of water to make it more sticky. Make into a ball and put in the fridge for at least one hour.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.

Then for the dough you mix all dry ingredients, the add the butter and mix till it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the milk and quickly combine to create a smooth ball of dough. Leave in the fridge for half an hour.

Take you filling and let it get to room temperature. Mix in the egg until smooth.

Roll out half the dough to a rectangle of about 20 by 25 cm and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put the filling on top in the centre so it doesn't leak to the edges.

Roll out the other half of the dough to the same size and carefully place on top.

Now press down the edges and seal with a fork.

finish with one layer of egg wash, then the almonds in straight lines and another layer of egg wash.

Bake the biscuit for 40 minutes until lovely dark golden brown with cracks.

Let it cool slightly and cut into squares with one almond in the middle.

Best with a hot chocolate in the month of December...

just out of the oven

cut into squares