Monday 8th December - Speculaas again

 

One of my birthday presents this year was a little biscuit stamp from the Søstrene Grene shop that opened in our town earlier this year. 

They come in different patterns, mine is the middle one. I made the Nigella Speculaas recipe, which involves naking up your own spice mix first... I need to buy ground cardamom and allspice to make it properly, but I substituted mixed spice which included both of them.

I was pleasantly surprised that the stamp worked so well. The white dust on the biscuits is excess flour, I used less in later batches. The biscuits came out well too. 

Speculaas (the Dutch version, Speculoos is a little different and comes from Belgium) is one of the flavours that means 'Christmas' to me.

I know what's going to happen; I shall carry on moseying along thinking 'Christmas is ages away, plenty of time yet' and then all of a sudden it will be upon us and I will be posting my Christmas cards on Boxing Day... it has been known. For several years I used to alternate between starting at the back and the front of the address book so at least people received cards every other year.

Voces8 again; 'the Angel Gabriel to Mary Came'

I'd never heard this carol until I was about sixteen and went to a boarding school. I l9ved it at once.