Speculaas biscuits

Name: Speculaas biscuits
Yield: Makes 56 small speculaas using a 4 x 6 cm (1½ x 2½ inch) cutter, wooden mould or stamp
Cuisine: Belgian
Ingredients: ¼ teaspoon each of ground ginger, nutmeg, coriander, allspice, mace, cardamom, long pepper (or the pepper you have); ½ teaspoon sea salt; 2 tablespoons speculaas spices (see below); 50 g (1¾ oz) almond meal; Rice flour, to dust a wooden mould, if using; 160 g (5¾ oz) unsalted butter, softened (when using a mould); or use 190 g (6¾ oz) butter (when not using a mould) for more delicate speculaas; 250 g (9 oz) dark brown sugar; 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon; 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda); 320 g (11¼ oz) plain flour or white rye flour; ½ teaspoon ground cloves; 50 g (1¾ oz) cornflour (cornstarch); Almond slivers (optional); 45 ml (1½ fl oz) full-fat milk

Preparation info

Makes
56
small speculaas using a 4 x 6 cm cutter, wooden mould or stamp

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Dark Rye and Honey Cake

By Regula Ysewijn

Published 2023

About

Once butter came into the mix and sugar replaced honey, tough peperkoek and honey cakes like the couque de Dinant, Lebkuchen, printen and taai-taai got a new sibling in speculaas or speculatie (Spekulatius in German). The origin of the name is unclear, but etymologists have two theories. One is that it comes from ‘speculum’, being Latin for mirror-image, because the finished printed koek is the mirror image of the carved mould, which o

Ingredients

Europe
Belgium
Netherlands
Germany
Cookies
Vegetarian
December
Winter

Ingredients

Method