The speculoos biscuits are typical for St. Nicholas Day. This shortcrust pastry with butter, almonds, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and mace is a must for the Christmas season. It is made by pressing the dough into floured, wooden moulds with figurative representations. The traditional biscuit figures tell the story of St. Nicholas from Myra and were baked in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium at the earliest since the 10th century and at the latest since the 16th century. The word Spekulatius is said to go back to the Latin term "speculus", meaning "mirror", as this traditional method of embossing biscuits with the help of wooden moulds creates a "mirror image" of the carved images. But it could also come from the Latin term "speculator", which means overseer or Bishop. Whether you know them as Spekulatius, Spekulaas, or Speculoos, hardly anything is as irresistibly delicious as these buttery and caramelised shortcrust biscuits with their gingerbread spices from distant lands.
125 grams of butter
100 grams of fine raw cane sugar
50 grams of unpeeled, grated almonds
25 grams of finely crushed rock sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
1 pinch ground cloves
1 pinch of ground mace
1 pinch of salt
250 grams of flour
Extra flour for the wooden moulds
75 grams of unpeeled, grated almonds or flaked almonds
1. Mix the butter, sugar, almonds, rock sugar, egg, cardamom, clove powder, mace and salt in a bowl.
2. Sift the flour over the butter mixture, knead the dough through, cover it with a tea towel and let it rest for 1 hour in a cool place.
3. Dust the moulds with some flour.
3. Flour the baking tray and sprinkle with some flaked or ground almonds.
4. Press small pieces of dough into the wooden moulds, cut off the protruding pieces of dough and knock them out of the moulds.
5. Bake in the preheated oven at 190 ° C for 10 minutes until golden.
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