People from Holland consider speculaas as Dutch as cheese, tulips and liquorice…
2013 updated version!
Like marzipan, speculaas (or speculaasjes as the individual cookies are called) is a cookie highly connected with the feast of Sinterklaas in Holland. The name speculaas has to do with the wooden molds the cookies are made in (we call it a speculaasplank, speculaas (sometimes also called speculoos) comes from the word speculum which means; mirror). One of the more famous shapes is a windmill of course!
Every year we are on a quest for the best spice and dough mix that will amount to the ultimate speculaas taste and texture. This fall, with the feast of Sinterklaas in site, we again blew new life into our speculaas project and after some more experimenting with dough and spices, we updated our recipe. Hope you will give it a try and like it too!
The speculaas spice mix before grinding
Ingredients for the speculaas spice mix
makes enough for 2-3 recipes of speculaas
6.5 g cinnamon
2 g ground cloves
1.5 g grated nutmeg
1 g ground white pepper
2 g aniseed powder
1 g ginger powder
1/2 g cardamom powder
You can also experiment with the spices of course by adding allspice or ground coriander seeds for example or using less or more of one of the ingredients, until you find your favorite blend. You can also buy sachets of ready made speculaas spices. But for the ultimate pleasure in smell and taste, you really must make your own! I started with a pestle and mortar but nowadays I use a cheap coffee mill for the grinding.
As for the soft brown sugar in the recipe. You can experiment with light, dark or muscovado sugar, they all have there own taste and can all be used. In Holland we have ‘witte, gele & donkere basterdsuiker’. We prefer the yellow (gele) version for this recipe.
Recipe for the speculaas dough
makes about 20 speculaasjes
225 g pastry flour / all purpose flour
115 g dairy butter at room temperature
130 g soft brown sugar
7 g / 2 tsps baking powder
3 g / 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsps / 30 g buttermilk or milk
3 tsps / 7 g speculaas spices (see recipe above)
few pinches of salt
fine rice flour to dust the molds
a speculaas mold made of wood
Making the speculaas
Make the spice mixture in advance. Preheat the oven at 165ºC / 330ºF conventional oven. Sift the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. You can also leave out the baking soda, with it you will get a more brittle cookie, without it the cookie is more crunchy. Add the butter to the sugar and combine. Then add the buttermilk and beat until smooth. Add the flour mixture and quickly knead into a ball. If you are using almond extract you can add that to the milk. Press the ball into a disc shape, cover and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. You can also make the dough a day in advance. This way all the ingredients really get a chance to blend. Just make sure your flour has a very low protein content, otherwise you might end up with a less crunchy cookie.
Take the dough out of the fridge. Sprinkle rice flour in the speculaas molds. Press an amount of dough in the speculaas shapes and cut away the excess dough with a very sharp knife. Tap the shapes out of the molds (this is NOT easy, esp. with new molds, they need a bit of help and maybe some light swearing) and place them on a baking tray. If you want you can add flaked almonds at this stage by pressing the underside of the cookie in the flakes and placing them, flakes side down, on the baking tray.
Bake in the oven for about 16-18 minutes, depending on your oven. All ovens are different so you may have to vary your baking times and oven temperature to get the best result. Keep a close eye on the speculaas during the later stage of the baking, because you don’t want your speculaas be too dark, (you will taste and smell it, burned sugar!). Take them out and leave the speculaas on the baking tray for a few minutes to firm up. Transfer them to cool on a rack.
The speculaas should be crunchy all the way through, from the edges to the center of the cookie. You will only know this for sure when they are completely cooled.
Tips for using your speculaas molds
- Be generous with the sprinkling of rice flour on your molds, especially when they are new
- Take extra care to flour the corners of the molds, for easier release from the molds
- Make sure your dough is as cold as possible but still pliable enough to fill the mold
- Make sure your knife for cutting away the excess dough is super sharp and cut with confidence and in one go
- Your knife should be level to the speculaas mold, held flat against the wood, when cutting away the excess dough
- Put dough back in the fridge for a while if it becomes too warm and soft
- If your speculaas will not be released by tapping, help it along with your fingers and/or with a blunt kitchen knife
- Gently brush excess flour from your speculaasje with a pastry brush
- The speculaasjes hold their shape better if you put them in the fridge before baking to firm up again
- Make sure your mold is dry and clean before storing it and cover it so it will not collect any dust
If you do not have a wooden speculaas mold, you can roll out the dough and make nice shapes with cookie cutters and decorate with almonds. Bake like the speculaasjes.
You can also make a speculaas pie, filled with (home made) almond paste (‘gevulde speculaas’). Check out our recipe for almond paste and our recipe for delicious speculaas pies filled with almond and cranberries.
you can also make smaller individual speculaas pies
Note: Some research done by me shows that there is a common root that binds speculaas spices to a British and an American variety. It comes close to something the Brits call ‘mixed spice’. This mixture also contains cinnamon and nutmeg and can contain a variety of extra spices like allspice (piment), ginger, cloves, coriander, caraway and cayenne pepper. The American ‘pumpkin pie spice’ also contains cinnamon and nutmeg, and usually ginger, cloves and sometimes allspice. So in conclusion they all have a base of cinnamon, followed by nutmeg, ginger and cloves and after that there’s some variation to be found. Interesting!
Also check out our collection of Dutch speculaas molds in our WKB bake shop.
Kitchen Butterfly says
This year, we’re celebrating Sinterklass for the first timeever…see, we’re Nigerian so the whole speculaas, pepernoten et al is a bit interesting. The bit I’m looking forward to most – Lootjes trekken and making a boterstaf with almond paste, vanilla seeds and orange zest.
Marieke says
Hi Wanda,
Leaving out the baking powder will result in a ‘denser’, less brittle cookie. You could try it, and see what you think of the result. It’s also to do with personal taste of course.
We use a very dark brown sugar (indeed like molasses) from the organic store, which has a lot of taste, the same goes for the cinnamon, the organic version is much more distinctive than the stuff from the supermarket. Another tip you might find useful is to leave the dough to rest overnight. It will only get better that way, because all the ingredients have time to settle and blend.
The thickness of the speculaas is dictated by the mold you use, if you do not use molds, then try to role it out to between at least 2 mm up to 4 mm.
Good luck with the next round, and I love to hear the results!
Marieke
wanda says
Today I’ve tried a totally deferent recipe and I have to say that the first one was much better. So I’ll try it again!!!! (3rd time)
Maybe I made them too thick? They should be very thin right? What if I leave the baking powder out??
Also…the color was to light. Speculaas should be very dark.
Maybe I’ve used the wrong sugar? Can you use Molasses sugar?
Marieke says
Hello Wanda,
Was it the speculaas spices or the structure of the cookies, that made that you thought it wasn’t like speculaas? I would like to know. We got a nice supple dough with 2 tablespoons of milk, but maybe it also depends on the type of flour used and the amount of moisture it needs etc.
You could also try different spice mixtures to get the taste you like.
Would love to hear your favourite, so we can try it too!
Have fun with the baking!
Marieke
wanda says
Is it me or??? I couldn’t make a dough with only 2 tblsp of milk!!! So I used more. The cookies were nice, but NOT really speculaas. I will try it again later this week. Will have to eat these cookies first. =-))))
Cass says
This is a great recipe – thanks!! I grew up eating these, and was so happy to find this recipe.
Faye: I live in the US, and there is a gentleman in the midwest that hand carves speculaas molds: cookiemold.com/
The molds are beautiful, and if you follow his directions, they unmold easily with great results.
Dankzegging!
Judy says
I’m so glad this link is at the bottom of the page. I love this guy and his wife. Not only does he hand carve speculaas molds, but there are many springerle and butter molds to be purchased and cherished for years to come. Be careful with the link if you type it in later. Type in cookiemoldS instead of cookiemolD and you will get House on the Hill instead of Gene Wilson’s site. House on the Hill has a huge collection of everything springerle, but the molds are NOT 100% wood but still comparable in price. I use both sites, but prefer my molds from Gene.
Marieke says
Hoi Mirjam,
Ja, ik weet het verschil tussen kruidnootjes en de echte pepernoten (meer als taaitaai).In echte pepernoten zit geen boter, maar wel honing of stroop. Pepernoten heb ik zelf nog nooit gemaakt. Ik heb wel een recept voor je gevonden.
Zie: www.de-chef.nl/cgi-b…kin=normal
Hoop dat je er wat aan hebt.
Succes met bakken!
Marieke
Mirjam says
Lekker pepernoten. Alleen het zijn geen peprnoten maar kruidnoten. Ik woon in Amerika en lust ze erg graag vandaar dat ik zezelf wil bakken. Ik kan nergens op internet het recept voor de echte pepernoten vinden. Zoiets moet jij toch weten??? Je maakt me dolblij…..
faye says
Hi, could you tell me where I can purchase antique speculaas molds? I live in the US and the state I live in is West Virginia…..I would appreciate any help you can give me….best regards, Faye Darby
Christelle van Lingen says
Ron
The problem you may have is in the measurements.
An European cup is 250ml whereas an American cup is 235ml.
After we immigrated to the US I had quite a few baking disasters before I realised what the problem was.
I baked this today and the recipe is absolutely perfect!
Dankie Marieke
Christelle
Marieke says
Hallo Nici,
Zo leuk te horen dat je in Australië ook speculaas kunt kopen. Ook poffertjes zijn populair merk ik aan de comments op mijn blog. Zelf maken, als je de tijd hebt, geeft toch wel de meeste voldoening vind ik. Vooral de kruiden vers kopen en zelf mengen, al die intense geuren, dat zou je allemaal missen als je een pakje koopt. En ja, ook zonder plankje is de smaak natuurlijk nog steeds heerlijk.
Veel plezier met bakken!
Marieke
nici nieuwland says
Hallo Marieke. Dank voor je speculaas recept. Ik ga het lekker morgen proberen. Ik woon in Australie, al zo’n 25 jaar. Tuurlyk kan ik hier speculaas kopen. Maar ik houd van echte boter en veel kruiden. Ik ben heel benieuwt naar het resultaat. Ik heb geen plank, maar dat deert niet. Enjoy the winter in Holland. Bye Nici
ilse says
Goeiemorgen, hier is het nu ook wel ¨winter¨aan het worden voor zover je het hier winter noemt…het is wat kouder en de afgelopen dagen erg veel regen (vandaar mijn weemoed naar speculaas)
Ik woon in het zuiden, in Andalusie en heb een boek wat erg mooi deze keuken reflecteerd:
Moro the cookbook : www.amazon.co.uk/Moro-…038;sr=8-1
Dit is ook een van mn lievelingsboeken, ze hebben nog 2 andere geschreven die ik nog niet heb maar zullen vast ook mooi zijn!
Verder is spanje zo ontzettend groot en divers maar heb dus deze als aanrader..
groetjes!
Marieke says
Hi Ilse,
Hoop dat je nog lekker weer hebt in Spanje. Hier is het dichte mist op het moment.
Raar dat die goedheiligman uit Spanje alleen in Nederland zijn speculaas en pepernoten uitdeelt 😉
Maar zelf maken is geen straf voor mensen die van koken en bakken houden.
Ik zit net te bedenken dat ik wel veel kookboeken heb, maar eigenlijk niets speciaal over de Spaanse keuken. Als je nog suggesties hebt?
Groetjes en geniet van Spanje!
Marieke
Ilse says
Hi marieke, ik was op zoek naar speculaaskruiden op het net en kwam op jou prachtige blog terecht!
ik woon in spanje en daar hebben ze geen speculaas, nu kan ik het lekker zelf maken. Thanx!!
ik zet je blog bij mn favourites,
en ik zag trouwens al een aantal van je favouriete boeken die ook bij mij in de kast staan 😉
keep up the good work!
Groetjes!
Ilse
Marieke says
Hi Ron,
So far I haven’t had or heard this problem from other people. I do not know these baking sheets but I can hardly imagine that this should cause the problem (though baking times can vary when using different surfaces, for example with the silicon ones it can take a little longer). Maybe it’s in the baking powder or baking soda that is somehow different or more powerful. The original Dutch recipes also never use an egg. You could try it with a little bit more butter (not too much I think) or maybe a different type of flour. I have used the dough both refrigerated and not refrigerated..that should not make a difference that makes a cookie crumble or not. In any case, leave the cookies to cool for a while when you take them out of the oven, before transferring them to a wired rack. So my first suggestion would be to look at the baking powder and or soda.
Good luck,
Marieke
Ron says
Did I do something wrong? I measured the ingredients precisely, baked at the right temperature for the right amount of time. But when I try to pick up a cookie, it crumbles almost to dust. Some other recipes call for an egg, some call for the dough to be refrigerated for a few hours before making the cookiee, some use more butter… I’m trying to figure out what went wrong. The only difference is that I used an Air-bake cookie sheet rather than the standard cookie sheet. But would this make the cookie so brittle it would crumble if you try to pick it up?
Thanks,
Ron
Judy says
Hey, Ron, This happened to me the first time I made this cookie. I found that when I raised the amount of liquid (milk) the crumbling vanished. You want to raise it just enough to hold the dough together well but not so much it becomes sticky. I hope this helps.
Marieke says
Dear American cousin,
I am grateful too for your addition and I hope many people will find it useful and get to taste the speculaas. This way this humble cookie will conquer the world!
Thanks,
Marieke
Carol says
Marieke,
I’ve worked the conversion and am including it here. Thank you so much for the recipe! You have a grateful “American cousin” now.
6.5 grams of ground cinnamon 1 ½ tsp
2 grams of ground cloves ½ tsp
1.5 grams of grated nutmeg 1/3 tsp
1 gram of ground white pepper ¼ tsp
2 grams of anise seed powder ½ tsp
1 gram of ginger powder ¼ tsp
makes about 24 speculaasjes
250 grams of wheat flour 1 cup
100 grams of dairy butter ½ cup
50 grams of raw cane sugar 3 ½ Tsp
50 grams of soft dark brown sugar 3 ½ Tsp
1 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda
2 tbsps of milk
3 tsps of speculaas spices (see recipe)
pinch of salt
fine rice flower for the molds
a speculaasjes mold made from wood
Marieke says
Hello Mia,
I only know the basic conversions I mentioned earlier in another comment in this same post. For the spice mix a precision scale (to 0.1 grams) is the ultimate thing I guess, because you do have to measure precise, and when you have found the right combination, you can repeat it easily time after time. Maybe there’s a scale around that weighs letters, they are also quit accurate.
Success,
Marieke
Mia says
Hello, I would like to try this recipe,Has any one successfully converted to US measurements?
Thank you
Mia
Marieke says
Hi Aithria,
Wat een mooi verhaal! Lot’s of happy memories I hope.
Success with the baking and enjoy!
Marieke
aithria says
Marieke,
I’m a korean and had lived in Netherlands for six years when i was a child(‘bijna twintig jaar geleden :)’). Every winter i missed ‘pepernoten and speculaas’ so much. And now, thanks to you…I can make it by myself!!
Marieke says
Hello Coppe,
I agree with you on the dough…’aldough’ 🙂 it still takes some practise with the ‘speculaasplanken’ and getting the cookies out of there shapes in one go.
Thanx and happy baking!
Marieke
Coppe says
I made these this weekend. They were really nice. It was really easy to work with this dough. For my future speculaas escapades, I will use this recipe as a base.
Bedankt!
Marieke says
Thank you Heidi,
Yes you are right about the ginger. I think this will work out perfect.
Lots of fun baking speculaas in America!
Marieke
Heidi Reese says
I have recently returned to the U.S. after living in the Netherlands for about a year. I really enjoyed your site and will try the recipe, using less anise, which I’m not fond of, and adding ginger which I do like and feel is essential in this type of cookie.
Thanks!
Heidi
Nena says
Marieke, thank you for your prompt replay!
Will report about my findings……
groetjes
Nena
Marieke says
Hello Nena,
I got my wooden forms from my husbands mother. She bought them the Aeolus molen (windmill)in the center of the town of Vlaardingen. There is also a mill in Santpoort near Amsterdam that sells very good organic flour that might have them. At a store called Dille & Kamille (in Haarlem) I also saw some.
www.dille-kamille.nl/winkels/index.htm. Somebody also mentioned seeying them at ‘De Bijenkorf’ department store. But remember that a new one does not work that well the first few times you use it. Some say, the older the better.
Lots of success!
Marieke
PS: There’s also a store chain called ‘ Boerenbond’ (see www.boerenbond.nl for store detaisl) and I saw some speculaas molds there. They also sell flour (also organic) of the Soezie brand, which is quite populair with home bakers (I bought some myself to try).
Nena says
Hello!
How surprised I am to find this web-site!
At the moment I am baking some cookies and as everybody is asleep I am surfing the Internet!
I just LOVE Dutch speculaas, I make speculaasbrokken but I would love to have the wooden forms, just don’t know where to buy them???In the shopping centers thay have eather plastic or metal ones…..I have a web-site where they sell antique and you can get them there, but I would like to have a new ones. Can you help me?
Best regards from a Slovenian grannie living in Amsterdam
Isabel Maas says
Hi,
After much searching I found speculaas wood forms in this webshop : www.wonderkok.be
I have ordered the plank with the 2 traditional forms and the one with the Sinterklaas form, I should be receiving it next week. Hope this helps .
Regards,
Isabel
Weekend Bakers says
Thanks Isabel,
Hope they do a good job. With our molds I have to say it keeps being a challenge to get the speculaas out.
Happy baking,
Marieke
Isabel Maas says
I baked speculaas today for the first time. The recipe above works just fine and I figured out how to use the wood moulds: forget about tapping it, use a knife to ease the edges out, they gently turn the moulds upside down on top of your hand and slowly pull the speculaas free so it falls on your hand. I am very pleased with the results:)
Cheers,
Isabel
Weekend Bakers says
Thanks for this great addition Isabel!
Marieke says
Hello Sherry,
Thanks for your comment.
If you google for ‘cooking conversion’ you will find lots of sites on how to go from metric to US for instance. Here are already some basic conversions:
U.S. to Metric
Capacity
1/5 teaspoon = 1 ml
1 teaspoon = 5 ml
1 tablespoon = 15 ml
1 fluid oz. = 30 ml
1/5 cup = 50 ml
1 cup = 240 ml
2 cups (1 pint) = 470 ml
4 cups (1 quart) = .95 liter
4 quarts (1 gal.) = 3.8 liters
Weight
1 oz. = 28 grams
1 pound = 454 grams
Hope this is of use! With this recipe you have to measure the spices precisely, so that is why we use a scale that can measure by 0.1 grams correctly.
Marieke
Sherry Wijzenbeek says
Greetings,
I would love to try your speculaas recipe. However, I live in the US, and we don’t weigh our ingredients. I don’t know how to convert your recipe.
Thanks for what looks like a great cookie!
Sherry
Els says
you buy a scales. using things like ‘cups’ or so will always give you inexact measurements. Like if your made a recept with a cup of flower and then tried to make it again later only the flower had compacted a bit, you would still use a cup of flower but it would be more than before. And then there is also the question of if it is suppose to be rounded at the top going a bit over the cup or flat across. when you weigh you don’t have to think about these things and your recept will alway turn out the same.
Just buy scales. it is better that way.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Els,
Thanks for your addition. Of course we could not agree with you more on the use of scales!
Marieke says
Hoi Julia,
Ik ben ook DOL op witbrood met roomboter en speculaasjes!! Grappig. Veel mensen vinden het maar raar dat je speculaasjes op je boterham doet. Ik ken het al sinds ik een klein meisje was, met de bakkersspeculaasjes van mijn opa. Die van de HEMA ken ik niet. Ga ik ook proeven als vergelijkend onderzoekje. De vorm heb ik van mijn schoonmoeder Jos gekregen. Ze kocht hem bij de molen van Vlaardingen (Aeolus heet die, dat betekent God van de wind). Ze brengt altijd heel lief dingen voor ons mee als ze weet dat we ergens mee bezig zijn. Plankjes, vormpjes, mixen, stroop, boekjes etc. Bij Haarlem in Santpoort heb je ook een molen (de Zandhaas) met heel goed meel. Misschien bij jou in de buurt ook.
Groetjes,
Marieke
Julia says
speculaas, speculaas, speculaas!
ik vind de versgebakken van de HEMA al super, maar dit….WOW!
zooo lekker als ontbijt op witbrood met roomboter…(erg verantwoord he?) =)
waar heb jij de vorm gekocht?
groetjes, julia