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Speculoos

Name: Speculoos
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 14 min
Total time: 754 min
Yield: 30
Ingredients: 750 g brown cassonade (soft brown beet sugar); 500 g unsalted butter, softened; 2 piece eggs; 2 tbsp speculoos spice mix; 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda; 1 kg plain flour; 100 ml buttermilk

Belgium's crisp brown-sugar spice biscuit, eaten with coffee all year and baked in quantity for Saint Nicholas and the festive season. This home recipe, from RTBF, is chilled overnight as a log and sliced, or pressed into wooden moulds.

Editorial illustration of the documented recipe; not a photograph of a kitchen-tested result.

Servings: 30
Preparation: 20 min
Cooking: 14 min
Resting: 12 h
Total: 12 h 34
Difficulty: Easy

Equipment

Stand mixer (the source uses a 'robot')
Cling film
Baking trays and baking paper
Speculoos moulds (optional)

Servings30

Ingredients

750 gbrown cassonade (soft brown beet sugar)
500 gunsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
2 tbspspeculoos spice mixPrinted as '5 épices' (five spices) in the source. Use a speculoos spice mix (épices à spéculoos).
1 tspbicarbonate of soda
1 kgplain flour
100 mlbuttermilk

Shopping list

Method

In the mixer, beat the sugar, soft butter, spices, bicarbonate and eggs for 2–3 minutes.
Timer · 3 min3:00
Add the flour and the buttermilk and mix until the dough is even and forms a ball.
Roll into a log of 7–8 cm diameter, wrap in cling film and refrigerate overnight.
Why The night in the fridge lets the spices flavour the dough and firms it for clean slices.
Timer · 12 h720:00
Next day, unwrap and cut slices 2 cm thick, or roll the dough out and press it into moulds.
Lay on baking paper on a tray and bake at 175 °C for 12–14 minutes.
Timer · 13 min13:00
Cool on the tray; the biscuits crisp as they cool.

Substitutions

Cassonade → Dark soft brown sugar; the colour and caramel taste come from it.
Buttermilk → Plain milk.

Common mistakes

Baking the dough the same day: it spreads and the spices taste raw.
Overbaking: the edges darken and turn bitter. Pull them when just coloured.

Storage & reheating

Airtight tin, 2–3 weeks. The raw log freezes; it thaws quickly and slices almost straight from the freezer.

Allergens

Gluten · Milk · Egg

Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.

Dietary

vegetarian

Saint Nicholas's biscuit

On RTBF, Leslie of Leslie en cuisine links speculoos to Saint Nicholas, whose legend begins in northern France: three small children ask a butcher for shelter, are killed and salted, and seven years later the saint passes by and brings them back to life with gingerbread. Crossing into Belgium and the Netherlands, she says, the gingerbread became speculoos. In Belgium it is eaten all year, dipped in coffee, and above all during the festive season.

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Sugar, spice and a night's rest

The dough is little more than flour, butter and a large amount of brown cassonade, with bicarbonate for a light, open snap. It is chilled overnight as a log, then sliced and baked at 175 °C for 12–14 minutes. The same dough can be pressed into carved wooden moulds for figures.

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