Speculaas is an iconic Dutch holiday cookie. It is so delicious, I just have to share it with you here. Even though it is traditionally a ‘holiday cookie’, it is actually eaten year around (probably because it is so delicious). It is a crispy cookie spiced with speculaas spice, similar to gingerbread cookies. I recently posted my 3 favorite holiday spice blends – pumpkin, gingerbread and speculaas spice – I use for baking and in it I explain the differences between the blends.
Speculaas comes in different forms. It can be formed into cookies made with a cookie cutter or a special mold. The dough can be rolled out on a piece of parchment paper, baked and, when cooled off, broken up in chunks. Or you can roll marble sized balls from the dough and bake them until crispy and crunchy. When they are shaped like this, they are called ‘pepernoten’ and are eaten around the Dutch holiday of Sinterklaas.
Coming up with a healthier variation
Traditional speculaas is made of all purpose flour, butter and dark brown sugar. I have tried to tweak the recipe to make it healthier without sacrificing flavor, using oat flour, almond flour, coconut sugar and coconut oil. I baked several different batches, each with different ratios of the different flours, coconut sugar and coconut oil and had my boys blind taste them. And I think I’ve finally got it! Healthier, but still delicious spiced cookies. Let’s bake and you be the judge of it!
How to make these spiced cookies?
Speculaas cookies are simple to make, require 8 ingredients and less than 15 minutes of your time.
It is as simple as mixing all dry ingredients together and all wet ingredients. Then you combine the 2 mixes together into a somewhat sticky dough ball.
For easier handling, I usually let the dough rest in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes to harden a bit.
Now your dough can be roll out thin with a rolling pin. The thinner the crispier your speculaas cookies will become. I go for more or less 1/3 of an inch.
If you are using a cookie cutter I would say don’t go as thin as 1/3 inch, but keep it at 1/2 inch otherwise it might be hard to transfer your cookies to a baking tin. If not, roll out the dough on parchment paper or a (silicon) baking mat. This way you don’t have to transfer it after you have rolled it out.
Optionally, once you have rolled out the dough, you can spread sliced almonds on it and gently press them in the dough. I really love the taste of almonds and speculaas spices like cinnamon, ginger and cardamom together.
Since you roll the dough of your speculaas out very thin, you will only have to bake these cookies for 10 minutes. Let them cool off and you have ultra crispy, aromatic cookies!
Cut out into shapes with a cookie cutter, broken up in large chunks or rolled into tiny balls, we truely love speculaas! And I am sure you will too! They are
crispy and thin – fragrant and aromatic – easy to make – great to bake with your kids – and finger licking good!
We all love cookies in this household! These crispy speculaas cookies, chocolate chip cookies, brownie cookies, gingerbread cookies. I can go on and on. We love baking together and I will post more holiday baking recipes soon!
Speculaas cookies
Equipment
- Rolling pin
- Optional: cookie cutter
Ingredients
- 200 gr spelt flour (or sub regular all purpose flour or even white whole wheat flour)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 110 gr coconut sugar (or use light brown sugar)
- a pinch salt
- 1½-2 tbsp speculaas spice* (speculaas spice= 1x ginger, 8x cinnamon, 2x nutmeg, 2x cloves, ⅓x anise, ⅓x cardamom, pinch of white pepper) (see link in Notes for detailed recipe)
- 20 ml milk (I used unsweetened almond milk. Other (nut)milk varieties work as well)
- 1 tbsp (apple cider) vinegar
- 80 gr (vegan) butter
- 1 handful sliced almonds (optional, for decoration)
Instructions
- Mix all dry ingredients together.
- In a separate bowl mix all wet ingredients together.
- Now combine the 2 mixes and form into a somewhat sticky dough ball.
- Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to harden a bit. This makes the dough easier to handle.
- In the meantime preheat oven to 170C/340F.
- Roll out the dough with a rolling pin. The thinner the crispier your cookies will become. I go for more or less 1/3 of an inch. If you want to add sliced almonds, the easiest way is to spread sliced almonds on parchment paper and place the rolled out dough on top of it and press slightly so the almonds stick to the bottom op the dough.If you are using a cookie cutter I would say don't go as thin as 1/3 inch, but keep it at 1/2 inch otherwise it might be hard to transfer your cookies to a baking tin. If not, roll out the dough on parchment paper or a (silicon) baking mat. This way you don't have to transfer it after you have rolled it out.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes until crispy. Let them cool off completely, they will get even crispier when cooling off! Enjoy!
- Store them in a glass airtight container to keep them crispy. I guess you can keep them for a couple of days. Not sure though, never got the chance to…
Notes
DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?
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