Speculoos* are a Belgian biscuit/cookie that I have been wanting to make for ages. Whenever you go to a cafe and order a hot drink nine times out of ten there will be a dunk-able, melt in your mouth speculoos on the side. They normally come in special shapes, you can buy enormous ones of St Nicholas to be given to children on St Nicholas Day (December 6th). The shapes are made using special planks, or wooden engraved molds. You will have to put up with rectangular ones from me though. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for some plank/molds, also for some waffle irons, maybe a later project?

 Recently a fellow blogger mentioned that she had hoped she might learn something Belgian related from me and my blog, so I thought I better rise to the occasion and maybe learn something myself. I do hate to disappoint.

 I searched online and came up with a recipe based on this one.

Speculoos biscuits are made using cassonade sugar which is unrefined sugar, substitute the darkest brown sugar you can find.

 The dough was wonderfully easy to work with, I could not seem to roll them as thinly as I would have liked, but they tasted perfect (to me). I also read a comment on another blog where someone said they were too hard, but I think they are meant to be hard and crunchy, they soften and melt in your mouth when dunked, hot chocolate is my choice.

Speculoos

• 500 g flour (I found it only needed 400g)
• 150 g butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 300 g brown cassonade (substitute the darkest brown sugar you can get)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• a few gratings of nutmeg

 Preheat oven to 180 c.

 Combine the butter, sugar, spices and eggs. 

 In a large mixing bowl add the flour in batches, and knead the dough until it comes together and is smooth.

 Cut the dough into two.

 Lay down a sheet of parchment paper and roll (with rolling pin) one half of your dough as thinly as you can, about 5 mm, keeping the surface smooth (you should not need any flour for this).

 Cut your dough into thin rectangles or use a speculoos mold if you are lucky enough to have one.

 Carefully using a knife or thin spatula slide the rectangles onto a baking sheet with parchment leaving a small gap between each, they really do not spread very much.

 Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, they will still be a little soft in the middle.

 Leave to cool for a couple of minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool and harden.

 Repeat in batches with the remaining dough.

 I think that these would be lovely dipped in very dark (Belgian of course) chocolate or drizzled with lemon icing.

* In Holland it is spelt speculAAs rather than speculoos.