Niken's Speculaas Biscuit

Cooked another biscuit this year 😄 When I suddenly craved for sweet spicy crisp to be dunk on milk, I opted to bake my mother's favourite: Speculaas!


Just like the other Dutch sweet goodies, this Speculaas is also containing a lot of spices. Cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, coriander, nutmeg, cloves, and some recipe even list black pepper and white pepper on their ingredients. No wonder, eating it will generate warm feelings in your tummy, very matching food for cold weather in Europe.

And I should be proud knowing that fact, as it is because Indonesia's treasury in nature the Dutch has those comfortable food. The spices I've mentioned above were not available in the Netherlands until 1600s, thanks to Dutch East Indies (VOC) spice trade. Those spices were on high demand yet extremely expensive, they were the main cause of Dutch colonialism in my country back then.

About this recipe

Anyway, why do I name this "Niken's Speculaas Biscuit"? It is because I created my own method to make this. The original recipe I referred to is actually in this link; however on the baking day I had only fresh ginger, ungrind coriander, cloves. and cardamom. I then ground them along with the almond in food processor then it turned to paste. I also didn't want to spend the day waiting for the dough to be set inside the fridge; so I sit it inside the fridge for an hour only, and formed them by hand. It still tasteful in the end!

Niken's Speculaas Biscuit
Yield: 56 biscuits
Total time: 3 hours

Ingredients:

• ½ cups peeled almonds, toasted
• Seeds from 5 cardamom pods
• ¼ teaspoon coriander
• 6 cloves
• 1½ teaspoons cinnamon powder
• 2.5 cm fresh ginger, cleaned and peeled
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg powder
• ½ cup softened unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
• ⅛ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1½ cup all-purpose flour + 2 tablespoon for grinding
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. With food processor, grind together almond, cardamom, coriander, cloves, and 2 tbsp flour
2. Cream butter and sugar together, then add almond mixture. Continue whisk until the mixture become homogeneous.
3. Grate fresh ginger, take both zest and juice in to the mixture. Mix well.
4. Add egg, whisk.
5. With spatula, fold in dry ingredients gradually: cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder, flour, baking soda, and salt.
6. Transfer well mixed dough to plastic wrap. Wrap and let it sit inside the fridge for at least an hour.
7. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 175 deg C and prepare the baking sheet.
8. Take a quarter of the dough at a time, let the remain stays inside the fridge. Sprinkle flour on your palm, form dough to mini oval shape, then flatten it with your finger. (Note: I add flower mark on the biscuit so it does not look too plain ^^)

     9. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes, until the dough turns brown.