Dutch speculaas biscuits recipe

Christmas biscuits

Every Christmas I do baking and some of the recipes are becoming traditions in our family, like the Christmas bread filled with almond paste, the Dutch pastry wreath filled with almond paste and the speculaas biscuits.

Yesterday we had suddenly a big hailstorm while I was baking and it was not forecast,this is a setback for the local fruit growers, especially the berry growers in the area.

It felt a bit like winter, but today the summer sun is out again.

Some of my handpainted Christmas decorations

The sudden hail storm

The recipe for the speculaas biscuits:

250 gram flour
175 gram butter
200 gram brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
3 table spoons of milk
1 tablespoon of speculaas spices
or 1/2 tsp mace, 1/2 tsp aniseed, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, 21/2 tsp of cinnamon.

In a bowl add the flour, spices, sugar, baking powder and stir together.
Add the butter and the milk and knead the mixture with your hands into a soft ball and leave in the fridge for an hour or longer.
Roll the dough between two sheets of grease proof paper till 2 cm thick and use different biscuit cutters to cut out shapes.
Bake at 160 celsius oven for 10 minutes or till biscuits are brown.
Cool biscuits on tray and store in containers.

Have a blessed Christmas.

This week I am part of Paint Party Friday

Our Cottage, Earthquakes, Mosaic

Only two Sundays ago at twelve at night we had a big earthquake again in the South Island of New Zealand. It was a 7.8 and our cottage shook and moved and we held onto the door post of the bedroom.

It is a very frightening experience and because we went through the Christchurch earthquakes six years ago a lot of memories flooded back.

In Kaikoura on the East coast of the South Island there is a lot of damage and big slips and rock falls and no way to get in or out of  town.

It will take months or longer to get this tourist town back to some normality and I feel for the people living through this disaster, I really knows what it is like.

                                                 

 For months I have been working on my mosaic around our fireplace, it resembles our fishpond and it took so long to finish, because I had many other jobs to do.
During the earthquake, the first thing that went through my head " O no, I hope my mosaic won't break, I just got it done".
Isn't it silly, like my mosaic is so important! Maybe that is how the brain works in a threatening event, thinking of something irrelevant as a way to cope.

 The next morning in daylight Henk checked the cottage and we only have a few cracks and no damage and when I walked around the garden I felt really blessed to live here.
We have no mansion and our cottage feels sometimes a bit small, but we have so much to be thankful for.

Fish pond

Our cottage

The cabin in the front

Garden beds

a new vegetable patch

Ollie and the view over the hopfields

I am part of Sunday Sketches

Pencil drawings and art therapy for the elderly

The last few weeks I am trying to get back into drawing again with graphite pencils.

I got a book from the library about High Country farming in New Zealand and found some nice images of shepherds and their working dogs.

I am planning to do an oil painting of a New Zealand shepherd carrying an exhausted sheep on his back with his dogs at his side.

Like the Good Shepherd carrying us when we feel tired and bugged down with life.

This week was a stressful week, I started a job on Thursday morning, but got a call that evening cancelling the job again. I had so hoped to earn some extra money for the wedding of my son Paul and Emma in December.

A working dog waiting in his kennel

A shepherd  with his dogs rounding up sheep

Last week I did an art session at the local rest home and the ladies painted a watercolour background and we made cards with the background adding ink stamped images and glitter paint.
The ladies enjoyed the session and the group is growing every fortnight.

Art class at the rest home

Coming week I like to make paper flowers from tissue paper, the classes are on a Thursday morning so I better start preparing the flowers to show the ladies a finished sample.
I love peonies and the paper flowers will look like peonies.

Painting with watercolours

I hope to have a better week ahead and wish you all a great week too.

I am part of Sunday Sketches