I love using speculaas in recipes. Speculaas are spiced biscuits from Belgium, Germany and particularly Holland. They are traditionally served at Christmas and the Sinterklaas on December 5th. The biscuits were originally made with wooden moulds carved with different shapes, commonly windmills. In times gone by, men would carve moulds representing their profession and give the biscuits to the father of the girl he wished to marry. He would visit again some days later, and if the biscuits had been eaten, the match was approved!
Speculaas are flavoured with a particular spice blend: speculaaskruiden. There are many different recipes for speculaaskruiden, but they all use cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger. There is controversy over the origin of the speculaaskruiden blend; it seems to have arrived in Holland from Indonesia some time in the seventeenth century, after the Dutch East India Company was established in the Spice Islands. In Holland, premixed sachets of speculaas spice are available, but I haven't been able to find any in London so decided to have a go at making my own.
Ingredients for speculaas spice mix (Original recipe)
4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground mace
1/3 tsp ground ginger
1/5 tsp ground white pepper
1/5 tsp ground cardamom
1/5 tsp ground coriander seeds
1/5 tsp ground anise seeds
1/5 tsp grated nutmeg
Mix the spices well and store in a spice jar!
I promised a colleague a batch of muffins in return for a favour, so for a change I decided to make speculaas muffins instead of speculaas biscuits!
Ingredients (makes 6 large or 12 mini muffins)
3/4 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup soft dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tbsp speculaas spice
(1) Preheat oven to 190 C.
(2) Mix together all the ingredients and spoon into muffin cases.
(3) Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until risen and golden brown (check they are cooked through by piercing with a skewer) and then allow to cool on a rack.
They are sweet and spicy and taste like Christmas! I think a ginger icing would go really well with these, and will probably add that next time.
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Twitter: KarenMPeterson
Those look like fun! Great recipes.
Thanks for stopping by on my SITS day! You have a really great blog.
Twitter: MrsScribe
Well, look at you! I’ve got Banana Cream Pie over at my place today. SITS sent me by, and I’m glad they did!
Here’s Pie in Your Eye!
I wish I wasn’t such a lousy baker, it all look great!!
OMG these cookies take me back! My Italian grandmother loved them, and she would always put them out at Christmas time (not an Italian tradition, but whatever, right?). I never thought to make cookies out of the mix – these sound SO good!
Really pretty, I love all the spices! Beautiful recipes and blog!
I always loved the tinned ‘dutch’ cookies that appeared around Christmas as a kid. I’m sure they were not half as good as home made!!
BPOTW´s last blog ..Best Posts of the Week
Sinterklass came today from Spain
….to see us in the Netherlands…he brought peppernoten, kruidnoten and loads of sweets. Come 5th December, I’ll be making Speculaas yogurt cakes…inspired by you so thank you very much!
Kitchen Butterfly´s last blog ..Swiss Bircher Muesli & other Thanksgiving Breakfast Ideas
These look and sound yummy! The muffin recipe is just the right size to try out for 2 people, too.
Thanks for the visit!
Dimple´s last blog ..Red Bricks & Window Reflection
[...] love speculaas and will happily bake cakes etc flavoured with speculaas spice all year round. (See Speculaas Muffins, or Dutch Spiced Tiffin!) But the speculaas biscuits themselves I reserve for Christmas. There are [...]
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