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Speculaas

Fragrant and light Dutch cookies, usually made during the cold season and particularly around Saint Nicolas day and Chirstmas.

Ingredients

1 3⁄4 cups flour (self rising flour)
1⁄2 cup sugar (brown sugar)
7 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons milk
3 teaspoons mixed spice (speculaaskruiden spice mix)
1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄2 orange (optative, only the grated zest)
  flour (to dust the work surface)

Instructions

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Knead to make a dough that does not stick. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. The spices will work their magic.

Heat oven to 350º F. Grease a baking sheet.

Place the dough on a floured surface and roll it to an even thickness, about 4 mm thick.

Cut rectangles or use cookie cutters to cut shapes from the dough. Place the cookies on the greased baking sheet.

Bake the cookies until they are a darker shede of brown, about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and transfers from teh baking sheet to a serving plate. Let the speculaas cool before serving.

Total time
25 minutes
Cooking time
15
Preparation time
10

Notes

Before baking, you can brush speculaas with egg white, and sprinkle on top a little sugar, flaked almonds or both.

There are special speculaas cookie stamps to decorate the cookies.

Speculaaskruiden (spice mix)

3 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1 tsp. ground ginger, 1 tsp. ground mace, 1/2 tsp. ground clove, 2 pinch ground white pepper, 2 pinch ground cardamom, 2 pinch ground coriander, 2 pinch ground anise seeds, 2 pinch grated nutmeg.

Ground cinnamon, ginger, mace and clove are the essential spices, the rest can be changed or omitted. Porportions can be altered to taste.

Source

Belgian speculoos are similar biscuits, although only ground cinnamon, or cassia, is added, not the complex spice mix used for speculaas.

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