diff --git a/recipes-extended/festival/festival_2.4.bb b/recipes-extended/festival/festival_2.4.bb
index 28623aa..c180855 100644
--- a/recipes-extended/festival/festival_2.4.bb
+++ b/recipes-extended/festival/festival_2.4.bb
@@ -34,6 +34,8 @@ inherit autotools-brokensep
 #disable parallel make (make -j), as festival cannot handle that
 PARALLEL_MAKE = ""
 
+EXTRA_OEMAKE = "CC='${CC}' CXX='${CXX} ${LDFLAGS}'"
+
 do_configure_prepend() { 
     #point to speech-tools in sysroots
     sed -i 's:EST=$(TOP)/../speech_tools:EST=${STAGING_DIR_TARGET}${datadir}/speech-tools:g' ${S}/config/config.in
diff --git a/recipes-extended/speech-tools/speech-tools_2.4.bb b/recipes-extended/speech-tools/speech-tools_2.4.bb
index 47e0d9b..cf9802f 100644
--- a/recipes-extended/speech-tools/speech-tools_2.4.bb
+++ b/recipes-extended/speech-tools/speech-tools_2.4.bb
@@ -14,12 +14,11 @@ inherit autotools-brokensep
 
 PARALLEL_MAKE = ""
 
-EXTRA_OEMAKE = "LINKFLAGS='${LDFLAGS}'"
+EXTRA_OEMAKE = "CC='${CC}' CXX='${CXX} ${LDFLAGS}'"
 
-do_configure_prepend() { 
-    #force crosscompilation compiler
-    sed -i 's:CC=gcc:CC=${CC}:g' ${S}/config/compilers/gcc_defaults.mak
-    sed -i 's:CXX=gcc:CXX=${CC}:g' ${S}/config/compilers/gcc_defaults.mak
+do_configure_prepend() {
+    # respect CC and CXX from EXTRA_OEMAKE
+    sed -i '/^CC=gcc/d; /^CXX=gcc$/d' ${S}/config/compilers/gcc_defaults.mak
 }
 
 do_install() {