100g butter, room temperature
100g cassonnade (dark brown sugar)
1 egg
200g flour
½ tsp baking soda
4 tsp spekulatius spice
a pinch of salt
For the marzipan filling:
130g sugar
zest of 1 lemon
200g ground almonds
1 egg
2 tsp lemon juice
60g candied orange peel
a pinch of salt
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
30 whole blanched almonds
Makes 30 cookies – Oven: 30 min
Mix the butter and the cassonnade in a bowl, add the egg and mix again. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, spekulatius spice and a pinch of salt. Add to the wet ingredients and work into a dough. Shape into a disk and refrigerate for an hour.
While the dough is in the fridge, make the filling. Put the sugar and the lemon zest in a bowl and rub between your fingers to release a maximum lemon aroma. Add the almonds, egg, lemon juice and pinch of salt. Finely chop the candied orange peel and fold through. Mix into a marzipan paste.
After 1 hour, preheat the oven to 170°C fan.
Dust your work surface with flour and roll out the dough to a rectangle measuring approximately 35 x 25cm. Cut lengthwise in half, so you have two long rectangles.
Roll out the marzipan into 2 long logs of 35cm and place each log into the middle of a piece of dough.
Beat the egg with a tablespoon of milk and brush along the bottom strip of the dough, then roll the dough over the marzipan and press to seal. Cut each log into 2 pieces and flatten the logs a bit with the palm of your hands, so it’s not fully round anymore. Lift the logs onto a baking tray and brush with egg wash, then place blanched almonds on the top.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Leave to cool completely before cutting the logs into little cookies with one almond on top each.
These keep in a tin for 2 weeks.
