Speculaas – Dutch cookies (english recipe)
On special request from Aki here my recipe for Speculaas – very christmasy cookies with a lot of spices.
While usually they are formed with a special wooden board, I can promise – they taste just as well (and are a lot less work) if you decide to go just for simple cut cookies.
Ingredients for approx 60 cookies:
250 gr unsalted butter
250 gr brown sugar (alternatively replace one table spoon sugar with one table spoon black treacle (dark sugar syrup))
1 pinch of salt
400 gr plain flour
4 tea spoons of speculaas spices (see below)
2-3 table spoons milk (as needed)
A handfull sliced almonds
Preparation:
Mix the cold butter, the sugar, salt, flour and spices to a thick dough. In case it’s too crumbly add a bit of milk, until it’s a smooth ball of dough.
Wrap it with cling film, and rest in the fridge for 1-2 hours.
After the dough had it’s rest, prepare your baking tray with baking paper, and spread the almond slices losely over it. Heat the oven to 175°C.
Put the dough between two layers of cling film and use a rolling pin to spread it evenly to about 2-3 milimeters thickness. Cut it in the shape you’d like your cookies, and put them onto the almond slices on your baking tray.
Bake for 12-15 mins until the edges start to get brown.
Let them cool, then put them into a closed box – they’ll taste better every day.
If you can’t buy speculaas spices, here’s the mixture:
8 parts cinnamon
2 parts nutmeg
1 part cloves
1 part ground ginger
1 part cardamon
1 part white pepper
1/2 part coriander seed
1/2 part anise seed
It works nicely with apple cake as well, or with icecream…
