Speculaas recipe for beautiful and delicious spiced cookies

With beautiful wooden cookie molds you can make beautiful speculaas or 'spiced cookies', but how about taste. What good are cookies that look great but taste... well... not so great. This is exactly the reason why, we at UpperDutch, made this page with a real genuine authentic (Upper) Dutch recipe for speculaas. The only right way to make speculaas is the (Upper) Dutch way, so follow these steps if you like beautiful as well as delicious cookies.

Ingredients

(for approximately 50 to 60 small cookies)

- 6¾ oz butter at room temperature
- lemon zest of ½ lemon
- 8 oz 'soft' brown sugar 
- 45 ml buttermilk
- 15½ oz flour (preferably a sea climate flour with low protein content)
- 6 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1½ teaspoon ground clove
- 1½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¾ teaspoon ground coriander seed
- ¾ teaspoon ground anise seed 
- ¾ teaspoon ginger powder 
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
- ½ teaspoon salt
- rice flour to flour the cookie mold

Making the dough

Put all the ingredients together and mix until you get a cohesive dough, don't knead the dough longer than necessary. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and let it rest for at least one hour (preferably a whole night) in the fridge. 

Molding the cookies with a wooden cookie mold

Let the dough warm at room temperature to let it soften for one hour before kneading it shortly before use. Preheat your oven to 340°F.
Flour your wooden cookie mold with a thin coat of rice flour to prevent the dough from sticking to the mold. The easiest way to achieve a thin coating of flour is to flour the mold generously and remove the excess flour by tapping while holding the mold upside down. Press the dough firmly into the mold and make sure to get the dough everywhere in the cutout to get nicely shaped spiced cookies (called 'speculaasjes' in Dutch). Cut of the excess dough by cutting with a sharp knife over the mold. Once the excess dough has been removed turn the mold upside down and tap the mold against your worktop to release the unbaked cookies from the mold. Put the 'speculaasjes' on baking paper on a baking tray but leave enough room between the cookies.

Baking the 'speculaasjes'

Bake your spiced cookies for 15 to 18 minutes and let them cool on a baking grid. Your typical (Upper) Dutch cookies are ready to be admired and eaten.

Wooden cookie molds