Speculaas

The speculaas cookies are a simple mix of butter, sugar and flour and the thing that sets them apart are the spices. Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom and white pepper – spices that the Dutch ships brought to Europe from the Far East in the old days. 

The cookies are traditionally shaped by pressing dough into carved wooden molds. The cookie than becomes a mirror image of the mold, hence the probable origin of the name: speculum is Latin for mirror. 

This is the recipe I used as a blueprint. Or maybe, I should rather say “as inspiration”. Since I don’t have any scales that would enable me to measure “1.5 g”, I eyeballed the quantities. And also added a bit of coriander and a tiny piece of star anise. I’d encourage you to do the same, include your favourite spices, play around a little, this is no exact science and the mixes are almost always good. 

Spice Mix:

 6.5 g cinnamon

 2 g ground cloves

 1.5 g grated nutmeg

 1 g ground white pepper

 2 g aniseed powder

 1 g ginger powder

 1/2 g cardamom powder

Speculaas

Makes about 30 cookies

Adopted, only slightly, from Vreni de Jong: “Wat eten we vandaag?“

This is the recipe I’ve used for several years and it produces a very authentic tasting speculaas. But the colour is a lot paler than the shop-bought variety, which is why I added a tablespoon of cocoa. Next time I would use even more, probably 2 tbsp. The recipe did not explain how to use the traditional mould (see picture), so I made up my own “method”. Alternatively, you can just roll out the dough and cut different shapes with cookie cutters.

150 g butter, room temperature

125 g brown sugar, dissolved with

 2 tbsp boiling water

 300 g unbleached flour

 1 heaped tbsp speculaas spice mix

 1 to 2 tbsp cocoa powder, optional

In a medium bowl, cream the butter with the sugar. Add flour, spices and the cocoa powder, if using. Mix thoroughly. Flatten the dough slightly and store covered in the refrigerator until needed, at least overnight to allow the spices to flavour the dough. Take out of the refrigerator about 30 min before you want to shape the cookies. Roll out the dough, about 3 mm thick. Cut it into rectangles, roughly the size of the shapes on the mould. Press a rectangle of dough into the mould using your thumbs and then run the rolling-pin over it. Using a small knife, loosen the edge of the cookie and carefully take it out. Put the cookies on a baking sheet. If the dough sticks to the mold, you can dust the mold with cornstarch or rice flour. Bake about 12 min at 160 degrees Celsius (325 F).

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