An ‘ontbijtkoek‘ is a Dutch spiced cake. The spices I used are cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, coriander and white pepper. You can find the recipe for ‘Speculaas Kruiden‘ here. It is best eaten sliced with butter on top. Yum!!
‘Speculaasbrokken‘ are another Dutch cookie that I love, the taste is SO addictive. It is baked as one big slab and you break it up in big crunchy chunks afterwards. They are basically a thick version of the speculaas cookies. The ‘speculaas’ spices are a mixture of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, cloves, white pepper, ginger, cardamom and aniseed.
This delicious buttery cookie is called a ‘sprits koekje‘. A Dutch cookie that people have been making and eating since the 16th century (according to Wikipedia). You use a piping bag to pipe the cookies on to the baking sheet. You can pipe them in any shape, like I did today. I made some Christmas trees because it’s December. The cookies are super tasty and easy to make. Perfect cookie to go with your tea or coffee.
Beat the butter and sugar light and fluffy (a few minutes)
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Add the vanilla extract and the egg and mix till a smooth batter
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Add flour and salt and mix until combined and you don't see any white streaks of flour.
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Scoop the batter in a piping bag and pipe any shape cookie you want (google 'spritsen' to see the most common sprits shape) on baking sheet lined with baking paper.
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Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.
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Leave the 'spritsen' on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cook completely.
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Melt the chocolate in a bowl above hot water and dip the cookies in to the chocolate.
Macadamia Lace Cookies or ‘Kletskoppen‘ are popular cookies in the Netherlands. They go perfect with your cup of tea or coffee but also with some ice cream. It’s a delicious crispy and sweet cookie. Usually made with almonds or peanuts but today I made them with macadamia nuts.
In a small bowl add the flour, salt and cinnamon and mix well
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Take the saucepan of the heat when the butter is melted and add sugar. Stir till combined.
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Stir in the water.
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Then add the flour mixture and stir through till you don't see anymore lumps.
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Chop up the nuts and mix them through the cookie batter
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If the batter is still too liquid, wait a couple of minutes for it to harden a bit.
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Drop about 25 mm dollops on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. They will expand quite a bit so leave plenty of space between them. I baked 6 cookies per sheet.
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Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for about 6-8 minutes.
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Let them cool completely on the baking sheet.
Notes
Be careful, do not touch the cookies with your hands when they come out of the oven. They are very hot.
This recipe will make about 24 cookies.
I recently bought a little jar of ‘speculaas‘ spices (they are a mixture of spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, white pepper and a few others) and I was trying to come up with something I could bake that was different than the obvious ‘pepernoten’ or ‘speculaas’ cookies. I decided to go with a recipe mix of a Nutella Twist Bread and Cinnamon bread rolls. Instead of adding cinnamon to the butter/sugar mixture, I added some ‘speculaas’ spices. That was a great idea because the bread is delicious!
Mix yeast, milk, sugar and egg together in a bowl or measuring jug. Leave for 10 minutes for the yeast to activate.
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Add flour and salt in a bowl of a stand mixer.
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Once yeast is foamy, add to the flour and salt. Also add the soft butter.
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Knead the dough with dough hook for about 5-10 min until smooth (if the dough is a bit too sticky add a bit of flour).
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Take the dough out of the bowl, it should be a pretty clean bowl. Oil the bowl, put the dough back and cover with plastic wrap.
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Place the bowl in a warm space, for example the oven turned off. Let it double in size. This takes between 1-2 hours usually.
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For the filling combine the butter, sugar and speculaas spices until a spreadable consistency.
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Once the dough is doubled in size, deflate the dough and roll it out into a large rectangle, about 1 cm thick.
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Spread the dough with the speculaas filling and roll up from the long side.
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Cut through the centre of the roll of dough and twist each side over the other.
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Bring the two ends together to form a circle and press the dough together to make a nice looking twist.
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Cover the bread with an oiled plastic wrap and let it rise again until double in size.
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Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius
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Place the bread in the preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes until cooked through and golden brown. You can cover the bread with aluminum foil near the end if the top browns too fast.
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Let the twist bread cool on a wire rack before dusting with icing sugar.
Notes
If the dough is too sticky add a little bit more flour. It should feel sticky to touch but not so sticky that the dough keeps sticking to your fingers.
If you don't have Speculaas Spices, there are plenty of recipes to find that tell you how to make these spices.
