Dutch Frangipane-Filled Cookies ("Gevulde Koeken")

Our Avid Baker's Challenge ("ABC") group is in full swing. For our March challenge, the chosen theme is "COOKIES". Any kind of cookies! Due to the global pandemic, I haven't been able to travel to The Netherlands to visit my family. Although we talk often, I miss hanging out with them. I also miss the baked goods.

If I can't go to The Netherlands, I'll bring The Netherlands to me. And so became my baking journey to make "Gevulde Koeken" for the very first time. These buttery and melt-in-mouth cookies (I'd call them pastries, really!) are filled with a soft and creamy almond paste filling. I love eating them the day they're baked. That's when the buttery outer "cookie" shell is still crisply. When you bite into it, it crumbles into your mouth!

Freshly baked Gevulde Koeken, golden brown and delicious!

There's a famous pastry chef in The Netherlands called Cees Holtkamp. He has tons of awesome videos on YouTube where he bakes all sorts of traditional Dutch baked goods with his granddaughter. Some videos have English subtitles, but most don't unfortunately.

I only made half the recipe for Gevulde Koeken since it was my first time. Of course, as soon as I took my first bite I regretted that decision IMMEDIATELY. In a flash, that bite transported me to my childhood as well as my recent trips.

Step by step photos

Sugar, butter, and flour rubbed together by hand.

After adding the egg.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 1 hour.

Divide the dough into 12 equal sized balls and roll each dough ball into a 10cm/4" circle between two pieces of lightly floured plastic wrap.

Put the almond paste filling into a pastry bag and pipe a little bit onto half of the dough circles.

Cover the almond paste-filled dough circles with the empty dough circles. Brush each cookie with an egg wash.

Decorate each cookie with whole almonds before baking. Brush again with the egg wash.

Golden brown and delicious!

Bon Appetit!

Final thoughts/tips

• These cookies were amazing! They actually tasted even better than the ones I got from the fancy(ier) bakeries in The Netherlands.
• Hubby loved these cookies as well. He remembers the one from the bakeries but also thought the homemade ones tasted even better. He rated them a 9.5 out of 10. Score!
• Leftover cookies freeze really well.

Gevulde Koeken

(slightly adapted from Cees Holtkamp's YouTube video)

Yields: six 4" cookies (half recipe)

Ingredients (dough)

• 50 g granulated sugar
• 100 g butter
• 150 g pastry flour (used 100 gr All Purpose flour + 50 g cake flour)
• 1/2 large egg
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest
• 3 g baking powder
• 1/4 tsp table salt

Ingredients (almond paste filling)* - separate YouTube video

• 60 g almond flour
• 60 g fine granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest
• 1/4 large egg
• -----------------------------------
• Mix the above ingredients ahead of time and let ripen in the fridge.
• -----------------------------------
• When ready to bake the cookies, mix an additional 1/2 large egg into the almond paste to loosen it up and make it pipeable.

*Made the almond paste filling a week in advance and cover in plastic wrap. Put it in the fridge to let it ripen and develop flavor. I would recommend doubling or tripling this recipe and keep leftovers in the freezer for when the mood strikes.

Egg wash

• 1/2 large egg + 1 egg yolk

Decoration**

• Whole (blanched) almonds (was lazy so I used organic unblanched almonds)

**Traditionally, each cookie has 1/2 of a blanched whole almond. Cees mentioned that bakeries do that save money, and that back in the day, each cookie had several whole almonds on it.

Baking

• Preheat the oven to 410 F.
• Bake the cookies in the middle of the oven for 15 min.
• Cool completely on a wire rack.