Lola’s Kitchen: “Speculaas” Muffins with Almond Paste Recipe

Posted January 22, 2016 by Lola in Lola's Kitchen / 32 Comments

LolaKitchen

Lola’s Kitchen is a feature on Lola’s Reviews where I talk about all things related to food, cooking and baking. These posts can be recipe posts, tens list posts about food or recipes or more discussion type posts about food. I love cooking and spend some time in the kitchen almost every day, so I wanted to give it a place on my blog as well. The banner for this feature is designed by Michelle from Limabean Designs.

I love “Speculaas” Spices, here in the Netherlands we can easily buy it and it makes for a great spice mix to add into bakings. Last year I already shared my recipe for “Kruidnootjes”, today I have another recipe with “Speculaas” Spices. “Speculaas” Spices consist of mainly cinnamon and a few other spices, if you can’t buy or make “Speculaas” Spices, then cinnamon powder is a good substitution.
These “Speculaas” Muffins have a delicious taste and are filled with almond paste. This was the first time I tried putting filling in my muffins and I love it. When you bite into these muffins you will be surprised by the almond paste in the middle.
This recipe is based on Books, Bakings and Blogging her Spiced Speculaas Muffins with Almond Paste recipe and my recipe for crumb cake (I used the measurements for the cake from that and dubbled them for this recipe).
Speculaas Muffin top

Ingredients

Speculaas Muffins Ingredients

  • Flour – 286 gram/ 2 cup
  • Butter – 140 gram/ 10 tablespoons
  • Sugar – 200 gram/ 1 cup
  • Milk – 100 ml/ 1cup
  • Egg – 2
  • Beaten Egg – 1/2
  • Almond Paste – 90 gram/ 1 package/ 1 cup
  • “Speculaas” Spices or Cinnamon powder – 2 tablespoons
  • Salt – 1/2 teaspoon
  • Baking Powder – 1 1/2 teaspoon
  • Baking Soda – 1/2 teaspoon

Here in the Netherlands “Speculaas” Spices is something you can buy in most grocery stores. If they don’t sell it in your country, you can either use cinnamon powder instead or make the mix yourself. You can make “Speculaas Kruiden” yourself by combining the following spices: 8 teaspoons cinnamon, 2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1 teaspoon cloves, 1 teaspoon cardemon, 1 teaspoon ginger, 1 teaspoon coriander powder and 1 teaspoon anice powder.

Method

  1. Preheat your ovvn to 200 degress celcius/ 392 degrees fahrenheit.
  2. In a medium till large bowl combine the butter and sugar for the cake. Mix until fluffy and then add the 2 eggs. Mix till combined and then add the milk. Mix for a short while and then add the dry ingredients, salt, baking powder, baking soda, “Speculaas” spices and flour. Mix for a few minutes.
  3. Now make sure the almond paste is ready. Put the almond paste in a small bowl and add the half beaten raw egg. Mix well until the almond paste is softer and can be rolled into tiny balls.
  4. Now assemble the muffins. Put muffin papers in a muffin tary or any other form. Scoop a spoonful of batter inside, so the bottom is covered. Repeat till all muffins forms are filled a bit. Then roll a smal ball of almond paste and place that on top of the batter. Repeat with all muffins. Then scoop more batter on top.
  5. Now bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes in the oven. Till a cake tester comes out dry. Then let the muffins cool down a bit and enjoy!

Pictures

sugar and butter

After mixing

After adding egg

Add dry ingredients

Batter done

Almond Paste and egg

mixed almons paste

scoop dough

add almond paste

Speculaas Muffins before oven

Speculaas Muffins after oven

Speculaas Muffin close-up

Speculaas Muffin inside

Variation Tips

  • “Speculaas” Muffins with crumble. After you made the dough, make the crumble in a small bowl. Combine: Flour (160 gram/ 1 cup and 2 tablespoons), Butter (113 gram/ 1/2 cup), Dark Brown Sugar (140 gram/ 2/3 cup), “Speculaas” Spices (2 teaspoons) and a pinch of salt. Mix well until crumbly and after assembling the muffins add the crumble mixture on top of every muffin and then put them in the oven.
  • “Speculaas” Muffins with frosting Make your favourite frosting and put it on top of these muffins once they are done. I think a cinnamon frosting would work great for these.
  • “Speculaas” Muffins with almonds. Before putting the muffins in the oven add some almonds on top of them.

Do you ever put filling in muffins?

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32 responses to “Lola’s Kitchen: “Speculaas” Muffins with Almond Paste Recipe

  1. Bec

    OH MY GOD SPECULAAS MUFFINS ARE A THING?! I am obsessed with the biscuits and didn’t even consider it could be something else. I have no idea why I didn’t know it was spice (I guess it’s not super common in Australia). I am so bookmarking this recipe and making it.
    Bec recently posted…Review: Shiver by Maggie StiefvaterMy Profile

    • These muffins are so good! Speculaas is not really a spice, it’s a combination of different spices. Here in the Netherlands speculaas is so popular so they make that spices combination and sell it as cookies and/or speculaas spices. It’s handy to buy them like that instead of having to cobmine them first.
      We also have paste or on your bread that tasted like Speculaas and ofcourse the normal biscuit ones, but around sinterklaas the flavour a lot of things with speculaas. I even tried speculaas flavoured custard this year.
      Please let me know how they turn out if you decide to make them :). I hope you’ll like them!
      Lola recently posted…Lola’s Kitchen: “Speculaas” Muffins with Almond Paste RecipeMy Profile

  2. This looks delicious!!! Cinnamon?! If that’s the main spice in the speculaas, I’m 99% sure I would like it. And I have newly learned that I really like almonds and their flavor, so I imagine I would like the almond paste. I WANT THESE. I’m coming over. I’ll see you soon 😛 (Why is taking food out of the computer not a thing yet?)
    Kristen @ Metaphors and Moonlight recently posted…Book Review: The Heartless City by Andrea BerthotMy Profile

    • If you’re ever in the Netherlands feel free to stop by and I’ll make these for you ;). Yes speculaas tastes similiar to cinnamon, but slightly different due to the addition of other spices, but if you like cinnamon I am pretty sure you’ll like speculaas too.

      I really like almonds too and almond paste, but often don’t know how to incorporate it in a recipe, so when I saw the idea of putting almond paste in a muffin I just had to try it. These muffins are so good!

    • I don’t really care for marzipan, unless it’s really good marzipan, but I usually like almond paste. But yes you could make these just fine without almond paste as well :). The blogger where I saw the idea for this recipe, added some almonds on top, so maybe almonds through the batter would work too.
      Lola recently posted…Review: Hapily Ever Now by Jen MeyersMy Profile

  3. Speculaas is kind of a luxury in America. I know places like Trader Joes (a grocery story usually in biiiiig, college cities) has a Speculaas cookie butter that everyone raves about, but in my neck of the woods, we don’t have that. For the longest time, the only time I could nibble on Speculaas cookies was when I was traveling via airplane. Such a weird place to have them. Now at least Ben & Jerry’s ice cream sells a speculaas cookie core ice cream, so I can satisfy my craving more regularly.

    But this post makes me so happy because you’ve given me the recipe for speculaas spices! I’ve tried searching for it in the past, but the websites I stumbled upon were always Dutch. I am totally making these muffins, and I cannot wait!
    Jackie recently posted…By Jove! Bryson, you’ve done it again. | The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill BrysonMy Profile

    • Here speculaas is pretty common, but I know it’s less common in America. That’s weird you only could eat them while traveling by plane mostly. I wonder why they do have speculaas there of all places. Oh I don’t think they sell that flavour of Ben and Jerry’s in our supermarket, it does sound really good!

      Ah yes I can see how that would be difficult to find a recipe for speculaas spices if you can’t read dutch. The recipes for speculaas spices I found were all dutch, so I translated it. I hope it’s a good spices recipe as I always buy speculaas spices storebought and haven’t tried making the spice mix myself. Let me know how the muffins turn out if you make them! I hope you’ll like them 🙂
      Lola recently posted…Review: Amanda Lester and the Orange Crystal Crisis by Paula BerinsteinMy Profile

  4. I *must* make these muffins, Lola!! They look and sound so delicious! I’ve not put a filling in my muffins. I’ve put a filling in coffee cake, but not muffins…but I’m going to. I am going away this coming weekend and was going to make some muffins for breakfast while I’m away. I’m thinking this recipe will work wonderfully! 😀
    Bookworm Brandee recently posted…Early Review ~ Getting Rough ~ C.L. ParkerMy Profile

    • This was my first experience with putting fillings in my muffins and it turned out great! Let me know how your muffins turn out! I hope you’ll like these!

  5. Diane Watson

    I will have to try these!! They look so delicious,and I just learned how to make my own almond paste or marzipan. In fact I was specifically looking for a muffin recipe that I could use the almond paste in and found yours. Just a couple of comments, I am pretty sure your farenheit temperature is incorrect, I think you probably want it around 350. And I was a bit puzzled by the instruction that said to mix a scrambled egg in with the almond paste. In the US a scrambled egg actually stirring a raw egg and then cooking it, so a scrambled egg is a cooked egg. If we are just speaking of breaking the yoke of a raw egg and whipping or stirring it until the egg is well combined, we call that a beaten egg. So I just want to make sure that the egg you are adding to the almond paste is not a cooked egg, but a stirred raw egg? Thank you for the clarification. And the blend of those spices sounds SO good. Thank you for the recipe!

    • That’s awesome you just learned to make your own almond pasta or marzipan. I used google to look up the correct Fahrenheit and just double checked and it gives me the same result as in the post, but you can usually bake on a lower temperature a bit longer too.

      Yes it should be stirred raw egg indeed. I’ll amend that in the post. Thanks for spotting that.

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