Prep time: 1hr to 12 hrs (depending how long you leave the dough to rest)
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Makes: approx 32 biscuits (approx 5cm across)
Sorry for the delay; I went on holiday last week so couldn’t post a recipe. This week, I am making Belgian inspired speculoos.
Belgium is also known for its sweet treats. The most well known is probably Belgian chocolate; did you know that the origin was a pharmacist who covered cough sweets in chocolate to make them tasty! After his grandson put crème fraiche in them instead, praline chocolates were invented (fact courtesy of yummy-planet.com). Other sweet treats from Belgium include Belgian waffles, cuberdon and speculoos.
This week I have chosen to make speculoos because I love a good biscuit to go with my coffee.
Speculoos are delicious spiced biscuits which are served in cafΓ©βs with tea or coffee. You may have had one in the form of lotus biscuits. Now you can make your own. Authentic Belgian ones have patterns printed in them, but I could not find speculoos printers anywhere! So mine are plain.
Ingredients
- 250g plain flour
- 120g brown demerara sugar
- 85g margarine – I used vitalite
- 1.5 eggs worth of egg replacer
- 0.5 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 0.5 teaspoon ground ginger 0.25 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- apinch of ground white pepper
- 0.25tsp ground cloves
- 0.25tsp of ground cardamom (I couldnβt find any so I ground up the inner seeds of some pods in a pestle and mortar)
You will need
Speculoos molds / cookie cutters
Recipe
1.Make the dough:
- Add spices and sugar to bowl (or food mixer bowl)
- Add the butter and mix with a spatula (or beater if a food mixer) until combined
- Add the egg replacer and mix again until thoroughly mixed
- Gradually add the flour and baking powder until a dough is formed
- Flour and wrap the dough with clingfilm or in a container; refrigerate for at least an hour but for best results overnight.
2. Cooking the biscuits:
- Preheat oven to 200C
- Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about half a centimetre thick
- Use a cookie cutter to cut out biscuits, (and make prints on them if you have a speculoos printer)
- Place the speculoos on a greased or lined baking sheet and cook for 10 minutes
- Let the biscuits rest on the tray for a few minutes before moving to a cooling rack
- Enjoy with a lovely cup of coffee or tea