‘ Wie zoet is krijgt lekkers…’
(Those who are sweet, get sweets…)

Sinterklaas (or St. Nicolaas, the ‘original’ Santa Claus) has arrived in our little Country. He always arrives by boot from Spain three weeks before his birthday on the 6th of December. On the night before his birthday, December 5th, he brings all kinds of presents especially for the children. They are delivered by his ‘Pieten’ (colorful helpers with black faces who can clime on roofs and through chimneys).

So in the period leading up to this night, the whole of Holland starts to eat specific candy that is associated with the feast of Sinterklaas. You have your speculaas (spiced cookies) and kruidnootjes (made from speculaas dough), pepernoten (ginger nuts), borstplaat (fondant), chocolade letters and banketletters (letters made from chocolate or puff pastry filled with almond paste, usually you get the first letter of your name). You can buy all this stuff in the stores, but it’s much more fun to make it yourself. So first a recipe for the original marzipan (marsepein in Dutch) and later I will come back with the ultimate spice mix for the best speculaas!

This is how you make the marzipan
Use almond flour you can find in the shop (in Holland mostly in organic stores) or grind whole white almonds as fine as possible. Add icing sugar, zest, egg white and (optional) other ingredients like colouring or flavours. Mix well until you have a very smooth consistency. Wrap in foil and leave to rest in the fridge overnight. Now you can make whatever you want with it, make nice animals with the kids, decorate a cake etc. Or just make simple shapes, like I did, and decorate with half a walnut or dip into some (tempered) chocolate.

Wikipedia: More information on the feast of Sinterklaas