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.
Hello again! I have a question you may or may not be able to answer. When I was a child, my German grandmother made cut out sugar cookies that were just a little thicker than paper thin, extremely crispy and most importantly had an unusual flavor that I haven’t found any cookies since then to taste like. Unfortunately, I can’t describe the flavor except to say it was amazingly delicious. It was not spicy like gingerbread and I don’t think it contained any of the typical pumpkin pie type spices. It was a delicate but very distinct flavor that made the cookies delectable. Could it have been Mace or Cardamom, or is there something else out there that’s used in some old world sugar cookies? Just thought I’d check with you. Hope you and your family had a warm and yummy Thanksgiving.
Maybe if you take the individual spices, like mace, cardamom, nutmeg, etc, and sniff them to see if it brings back the memory? It could have been a speculoos cookie, which sometimes contains white pepper.
Stunning! I have this set of cutters – haven’t used them yet this year. Maybe I will now that I’ve seen these beauties.
hey sue, any chance you have these measurements in metric rather than cups… what’s the weight of 1/3 stick of butter for instance. (we don’t have butter sticks in the UK…) also… why do you say 2 x 1/4 cups of flour instead of 1/2 cup flour? All very confusing!!
They look so perfect! I love the snowflake design. So many cookies to make! So little time!
These look absolutely amazing. I’m definitely going to be making these cookies this year for Christmas!! I just had to share this the other foodies on Reachably https://www.reachably.com/activity/for/foodies
I do love everything about this!
Excellent idea!
what gorgeous and delicate snowflakes! these sound great. if i’m breaking out my cookie cutters, you’d better believe the result will be for eating purposes only. 🙂
I have to try these cookies…I love ones with a little spice. And those cookie cutters make beautiful cookies.
Just special! This is the second time I have come across Speculous in as many days – how have I never heard of it before. Maybe I could get it on lin?
thee are just divine… I’ve got such large hands that I’m really rubbish when it comes to this kind of fine cookie cutting and icing but I do happen to have a couple of nice christmas inspired cookie cutters so I may give this recipe a go… I guess I need to give myself some time and relax into it… thanks for sharing the recipe x