Speculoos Cookies are based on crisp European holiday cookies traditionally made with warm baking spices like cinnamon, cloves, and ginger.
Speculoos cookies are a traditional holiday spice cookie in Belgium and the Netherlands. This dough is a little more interesting than plain sugar cookies, and yet not as overwhelmingly spiced and peppery as gingerbread can sometimes be. It smells like the holidays and makes a nice all purpose cookie dough.
Everybody’s got their favorite cookie cutters, and chances are they only see the light of day at this time of year. If I’m going to bother rolling and cutting cookies, then I want it to be fun, and I’m partial to pretty snowflakes.
Traditionally speculoos are made with brown sugar but I use white. It gives the cookies a sort of “white gingerbread” vibe.
The fragrant dough rolls out easily and reforms and re-rolls easily as well, so there’s little waste.
The cookies can be decorated in lots of ways. You can leave them plain for a rustic look, add sprinkles, or frost them with royal icing.
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Speculoos Spice Cookies
Equipment
- baking sheets
- parchment paper
Ingredients
cookies
- 1 1/3 sticks unsalted butter, softened at room temperature (about 11 tablespoons)
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp mace
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- 1 large egg
- 1/3 cup almond flour
- 2 1/4 cups all-purposed flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
royal icing
- 2 egg whites, or you can use dried egg whites mixed with water according to the package
- 3 1/2-4 cups confectioner's sugar
- 1/2 tsp lemon juice or vinegar, stabilizes the icing
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Cream the butter, sugar, and spices together until fluffy. Scrape down the bowl to get everything incorporated. Beat in the egg and almond flour and take a minute to get everything well combined.
- With your mixer on low blend in the flour and baking soda and blend until the dough comes together and there is no dry flour left. Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to incorporate the butter and flour well.
- Turn the dough out onto a board and bring together into one piece, if it’s crumbly, knead it a bit. Cut the dough in 2 and form flat discs, as if for pie dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
- Roll out the dough to your desired thickness and cut your cookies. If you spray the inside of your cutters with cooking spray, they will release the dough easier. Place the cut out cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes, depending on thickness (the surface will still be pale.) Let cool on the baking sheet 5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack.
- When the cookies are completely cooled you can frost with royal icing and add decorative sugars, etc., if desired.
royal icing
- Lightly whisk the egg whites just until frothy. Add the lemon juice (or vinegar) and vanilla.
- Start adding the powdered sugar gradually, beating until smooth and glossy. Beat until you reach your desired consistency:Flooding icing: beat until thick but not stiff. Ribbons of frosting dripped from the beater should melt back in.Piping/detail icing: keep it thick ~ stiff peaks that hold shape.
- Transfer to a baggie with the edge clipped, or a piping bag. Or, you can just spoon the icing down over the cookies for total coverage like I did. Add in food coloring if you like.
I have a confession to make. I read every post you write. Only, I don’t comment. I’m sorry, but time is so limited. However, today, I must comment. I love these cookies. I truly do. I love Speculoos cookies, and I don’t have to patience to decorate sugar cookies all fancy-like…you know. But, these. Ah, these. They are pretty, and very do-able. Yes, I can make these. And, I shall. Thank you!
These are so gorgeous! They make me want to get up and bake right now!
Over the years I’ve found that if I don’t bake really early in the season, it doesn’t get done 🙂
Love how you made the cutouts in the snowflakes’ interiors!
Those are beautiful! I would LOVE to make something that pretty for tree ornaments at our cabin. I considered it, but I’ve had truly HORRID luck with making any form of cut cookie/ornaments in the past. Given, I’ve only tried twice, but it was pretty darn bad.
Of course, I’m not sure if I could resist just eating these! How do you make your salt dough, Sue? Mine really was awful. 🙁
I set out to do something much more elaborate, but gave myself permission to switch gears midway through and keep it simple. Big hands or small, there’s just so much fussing that you can do with food before it becomes headache inducing!
Gorgeous! Those cutters are the bomb!
Not sure why you wrote “not exactly Martha Stewart”; but, she’s a bit too Princess Perfect for me anyway.
I much prefer Ina… she loves the “homemade” look…. so you are right up there in my book!
They sound divine and I can’t wait to see a big snowflake in your virtual cookie box… happy the flakes are MIA in upstate NY as of now 😉
Haha, Ina is the bomb! Glad your weather is holding up, but I know I’m going to need lots of snowflake cookies this winter to make up for the lack of real snow here!
Wow, those shapes are gorgeous. I am drawn to this recipe because of the cardamom, which I just recently used in a coffee cake (recipe to be posted on my blog this weekend). What an interesting spice cardamom is! I must try these cookies. Where did you find those amazing cutters?
Claudia
I love cardamom too, I’ve been using it a lot. In fact, I’m basically using it in place of cinnamon. I love that it’s used equally in sweet and savory foods. Don’t remember where I got the cutters, I meant to look them up and make a link, thanks for the reminder. I’m guessing someplace like Williams Sonoma.
“Speculoos are a traditional Dutch holiday spice cookie” <-- and I will be traveling to a place shortly where they serve them, in full force, and have always been trying to recreate a good, quality, solid recipe (that's written in English..ha!) but never really have found the recipe I am looking for. Yours looks amazing! I would love these. I love speculoos, the spread, the cookies, the whole flavor palate is perfect!
My grandfather was Dutch, and so I remember eating them at his house when I was young. This is a pretty mild version, but I’d love to see what you come up with for an authentic one. It uses black pepper, no?
You recipe and cookies look good:-) I added some new cutters this year:-)
Looking forward to trying them:-)
Thank you for the recipe–so pretty:-)
I used to have a huge drawer full of cutters, but when we moved they didn’t make the cut (no pun intended!)…I’m glad I saved my snowflakes, though!
So pretty, I wish you could open a blog store Sue.
I’m thinking about it!