Speculoos

On my recent trip to San Francisco, I visited the Biscoff Coffee Corner to score a gigantic tin full of the addictive cookies, which I first encountered on Delta Airline flights. Biscoff cookies are just the product name that the European company Lotus gave to their version of the popular Belgian and Dutch cookies, speculoos. 

Speculoos are thin crispy shortbread-like cookies that are lightly spiced with cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and other spices. Traditionally they are molded and are served for St. Nicholas's feast, but they are now popular and available year-round. They are not readily found in the US, but ironically, a cookie-based spread (think somewhere between Nutella and peanut butter in consistency) has exploded onto specialty supermarket shelves recently and taken the blogging world by storm.

As is my m.o. these days, when I become addicted to something, I try to find a suitable copycat recipe so I will never run out of the precious delicacy. And so this is the first speculoos recipe, of the many that I have collected, that I have tried.

This recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan, in her newer book Around My French Table, and although I do not own this book, as luck would have it, she posted the recipe on her own blog awhile back due to some typo corrections she wanted to emphasize. The texture is spot on, crisp and just a tiny bit crumbly, but the spice combo is lacking a little bit of something, so perhaps I can use this basic recipe and find a different combo of spices from another recipe for my next try.

This recipe tells you to roll out the dough and chill it for 3 hours, and the chill time is definitely necessary as the dough is very soft; however, I preferred rolling the dough out into logs to slice-and-bake rather than mess with cookie cutters. 

Speculoos (Adapted from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan)

Ingredients:

1 & 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 & 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

7 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 large egg, room temperature

Instructions:

Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices in a bowl.

Cream the softened butter with a stand mixer using the paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer) at medium speed until light and creamy. Add the sugars and beat until well incorporated, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and mix until well-incorporated. At the mixer's lowest speed, add the dry ingredients in 3 additions, mixing only until the flour disappears into the dough. Remove bowl from mixer, and if there is any dry flour remaining at the bottom of the bowl, gently fold it into the dough using your hand or a spatula. 

Divide the dough in half or thirds (depending on how warm your kitchen is; the dough softens fast so better to work in smaller batches if environment is warm). With each portion of dough, roll it out between two pieces of saran wrap or parchment paper until you have a round of dough that is just about 1/4 inch thick. Try to avoid rolling wrinkles into the dough; pull the paper/plastic away from the dough and reposition/smooth as needed. Alternatively, roll each portion into a log in saran wrap and twist off the ends really tight like a gigantic Tootsie roll. Place your rolled out rounds or logs on a cookie tray and refrigerate for at least 3 hours (up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months, well wrapped).

When you're ready to cut and bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare baking sheets.

If you're going the cookie cutter route, pick rounds not much more than a couple inches in diameter. You could also cut the whole round into squares/rectangles/triangles. If you are working with logs, cut logs into 1/4 inch slices. Arrange cookies on baking sheets. If you have scraps, they can be combined and re-rolled out for use, but remember to give them another chill after rolling but before cutting new cookies. The dough quickly becomes almost gooey if you leave it out too long. You can also roll small balls of dough and squash them to 1/4 inch thickness.

Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned and the cookies appear set. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. Serve with coffee or tea! 

Stores well at room temperature in an airtight container (at least a week) and you can also freeze them for longer storage.