Speculaasbrokken – Speculaas Cookie Chunks

These are some of my favourite biscuits – thick, crunchy and spicy, especially good in the cold winter months with a cup of coffee (or mulled wine!)

Ingredients:

• 250 g flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 150 g butter
• 150 g dark brown sugar
• 4 tsp speculaas spices*
• pinch of salt
• 4 tbsp cold milk
• blanched almonds or almond flakes

For a vegan recipe, replace butter with margarine and milk with a plant-based milk or water.

*To make your own speculaas spices, mix the following (all ground):

• 16 parts cinnamon
• 4 parts nutmeg
• 4 parts cloves
• 2 part ginger
• 1 part mace
• 1 part cardamom

Preparation:

• knead all ingredients into a firm dough
• roll it out to 1 cm thickness onto some baking paper or silicon sheet
• transfer to a baking tray or sheet
• brush with milk and decorate with almonds
• bake at 175C (155C fan oven) for 30-35 min or until golden – they should be crunchy throughout, not soft
• cool them, then break them into chunks. For more regular pieces, score with a knife when still warm, then break along the lines when cold
• store in an airtight container; they will keep crunchy for a few weeks.

Carbs:

• total – around 330 g

Prep time:

• total – around 1 hr + cool down

Butter Cookies – Spritsen

Spritsen are a type of buttery biscuit (or cookie if you’re American) that is popular in many parts of Europe. I used a Dutch recipe as the basis (https://rutgerbakt.nl/koek-recepten/spritsen-recept/).

Ingredients:

• 225 butter and / or margarine (I used a mix of both for this to get rid of leftovers)
• 125 g brown sugar
• zest of 1/2 untreated lemon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp milk
• 275 g flour

(For a vegan recipe, use margarine and replace the milk with nut milk or water)

Preparation:

• Mix butter / marg and sugar with salt and lemon and whip until creamy
• Add the flour and milk to make a soft, buttery dough
• Knock the dough against the counter a few times – this will make the dough whiter and smoother
• Using a piping bag with a wide, serrated nozzle (around 1 cm / 0.4 inches), pipe rounds onto a lined baking tray.
• Note that the spritsen will spread out a bit
• Bake at 160C (140C fan oven) for 25-30 min until light brown
• Cool on a rack

Store in an airtight container and ideally eat within a week – they go a bit soft after a while.

Carbs:

• total: around 330
• per biscuit (if making 16): 20

Preparation time:

• dough: around 15 min
• piping and baking: around 30 min per tray

Hazelnut and Almond Cookies

These cookies are very christmassy, with a lovely mix of buttery, nutty and vanilla flavours. They are relatively easy to make, but a little bit delicate to handle due to the high nut content.

Ingredients:

• 250 g soft butter (replace with margarine to make it vegan / dairy free)
• 160 g ground hazelnuts
• 75 g ground almonds
• 250 g flour
• 125 g sugar
• vanilla to taste

Preparation:

• Mix butter, sugar and vanilla
• Stir in the nuts
• Work the flour into the dough
• Roll out to approximately 0.75 cm (just over 1/3 inch) thickness

• Cut shapes (take care when cutting and moving the shapes as the dough is quite brittle; I tend to use simple cutters for these. Stamps work well.)
• Transfer the shapes onto a lined baking tray and bake at 155C (fan oven, otherwise add 20C) for 10-15 minutes until light brown.
• Cool before transferring as the cookies will be fairly brittle, especially when warm.

Carbs:

• totals: 325 grams – divide by number of cookies to get the carbs per piece

Preparation time:

• mixing: 5-10 minutes
• shaping and baking: 45-75 minutes depending on size of oven, number of available trays etc

Recipe idea from:

https://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/577431156499671/Die-besten-Nusskekse-der-Welt.html

Pandan Cookies

After my first experiment baking with pandan leaves, there were a few leaves left over that I had to process. I thought that pandan might be interesting in cookies.

They turned out pretty tasty, the pandan and coconut milk giving a nice contrast to the dark chocolate I used. The green colour did not come across as nicely as it did with the cakes I made earlier, but you can see a hint of it in the cookies.

Ingredients (makes 20):

• 3 pandan leaves
• 60 ml coconut milk
• 200 g plain flour
• 1 tsp soda
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 75 g butter
• 125 g sugar
• 1 egg
• 50 g dark chocolate

Preparation:

• Blend coconut milk and pandan leaves, then pass the blended mix through a sieve to remove the plant fibre.
• Mix flour, soda, salt, butter, sugar and the egg.
• Add the sieved pandan coconut milk.
• Grate the dark chocolate, and add to the cookie dough. Mix well.
• Heat oven to 160C (fan oven).
• Form cookies (the recipe is for soft cookies, so make them dome shaped rather than flattened).
• Bake for 10 minutes.

Time:

• Around 45 minutes.

Carbs:

• Total: Around 300 g, depending on the chocolate used.
• Per cookie: 15 g (if making 20 cookies).

Almond and butterscotch biscuits

These biscuits have a fine texture and are very crunchy. Using almond essence instead of almonds makes them easier to form and decorate (and less likely to fall apart), and of course you can replace the almond essence with anything you prefer (lemon, orange, rum, coffee…)

Ingredients (makes around 40 large biscuits):

• 170 g butter or margarine
• 125 g icing sugar
• 1 egg
• almond extract
• butterscotch flavouring
• 320 g flour
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preparation:

• Mix butter and icing sugar
• Add the egg, almond and butterscotch flavouring
• Mix flour and salt and add the mixture to the wet ingredients bit by bit
• Once you have a smooth, hard dough, roll it out to 5 mm (1/5 inch) thick
• Cut shapes and transfer them to a lined baking tray

• If using a stamp, stamp biscuits and then freeze for 10 min (or chill for 30 min)

• Bake at 155C (fan oven) for 12-14 min. The biscuits only brown lightly.
• Let the biscuits cool for a few minutes before removing from the tray
• Decorate to taste

Carbs:

• total: 360 g
• per biscuit: just under 10 g (for 40 biscuits)

Preparation:

• Preparation time: 30 min
• Baking time: 12 min per tray
• Overall: Approx. 1 hour

Speculaas Biscuits

These biscuits are made with speculaas spices (“speculaaskruiden”), a Dutch spice mix that tastes of… well… Christmas I guess! If you can’t get hold of it in a shop, here’s how to make it yourself. Don’t worry if you don’t have all the spices at home, it might not be speculaas spice, but it’ll likely still be very tasty.

Speculaas spice mix (all spices ground):

• 16 parts cinnamon
• 4 parts nutmeg
• 4 parts cloves
• 2 part ginger
• 1 part mace
• 1 part cardamom

Now for the biscuit recipe!

Ingredients (for 20 large round biscuits):

• 250 g flour
• 125 g brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• vanilla to taste
• 4 tsp speculaas spices
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 medium egg
• 100 g soft butter or margarine
• 50 g ground almonds
• flour for rolling

Preparation:

• Knead all ingredients into a dough and shape it into a roll
• Chill for 30 minutes
• Roll out thinly (4-5 mm / 1/5 inch)

• Cut as desired and transfer onto a lined baking tray or cookie sheet
• If stamping, dip the stamp in flour every second time, and after stamping freeze biscuits for 10 min before baking. Freezing also helps the biscuits keep their shape
• Bake at 160 C (fan oven) for 10 min, and decorate as desired

Carbs:

• Total: Approx. 220 g
• Per biscuit: Approx. 11 g

Time required:

• Prep, mixing, making shapes etc: 20 min
• Chilling: 30 min
• Baking: 10 min per tray
• Total: 1 h 10 min to 2 h, depending on stamping, decorating etc

 

Ischler Kekse – Almond-chocolate-jam biscuits

I first encountered these super tasty biscuits through a Romanian-German school friend. She would gift me a bag of home made biscuits each Christmas, or her mum would serve a spread of biscuits when I visited during the advent period, as is custom in Germany.

These ones, that I got to know as “Ischlar”, were my absolute favourite. So almondy I was sure they had marzipan in them (not so!)

It took me decades to finally find out that the recipe originates in Austria, where they are called “(Bad) Ischler Kekse” (Biscuits from Bad Ischl). I have seen recipes with apricot jam and redcurrant jam, but really any jam you like will work for the filling.

The recipe makes 36 filled biscuits (each made up from two single biscuits)

Ingredients:

• 150 g flour
• 120 g butter
• 75 g icing sugar
• 75 g ground almonds
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 pinch of salt
• jam or marmalade for filling (I used a mixed berry jam I was given by a friend)
• chocolate for coating (120 g; I used dark chocolate around 62% with some added vegetable fat)
• sliced almonds for decoration

Preparation:

• Knead flour, butter, icing sugar, ground almonds, cinnamon and salt into a smooth dough
• Chill the dough for 30 min
• Roll to a few mm thickness
• Cut circles with approx. 3 cm diameter (can be larger, but you’ll get fewer biscuits!)
• Bake on a lined baking tray, 10 min at 160C (fan oven)
• The almonds will make the biscuits very soft when warm, so let them cool fully before processing
• Make stacks of 2 biscuits, held together with a thin layer of jam or marmalade
• Melt the chocolate and add some vegetable fat to thin it to the desired consistency for coating
• Dip the filled biscuits in the chocolate
• Decorate with sliced almonds (or chopped nuts, sprinkles, whatever you like!)
• Let the chocolate dry fully before transferring them into a tin / box for storage

Time:

This is a bit fiddly, no two ways about it. But it’s well worth it! I’d say a 1 1/2 h for making the biscuits (including waiting while the dough chills, and waiting for the biscuits to cool), then another 30 min or so for filling and dipping in chocolate, and a few hours to dry. So let’s say 2 hours of work / prep, and then you can leave the chocolate to dry overnight.

Carbs:

That depends a bit, based on how much jam (and what jam) you use, and how much chocolate for the coating.

The biscuits themselves are around 220 g carbs total (or 7 g per biscuit). In my recipe, I didn’t use up all the chocolate and went for small amounts of jam, so I’d say around 11 g of carbs per biscuit.

Kletskopje – Crunchy Peanut and Sugar Biscuits

One of my father in law’s favourite sweets, I made these for the first time. “Kletskopje”, or “Kletskoppen”, can mean “bald heads” or “chatterboxes”, both of which seem kind of unlikely names for a biscuit, but there also is a Belgian name for it, “Brugse kant” (Lace of Bruges), which, looking at them, makes a little more sense 😉

They are pretty much bite-sized pieces of crunchy, nutty caramel, so if that’s your kind of thing, give it a go – they are pretty easy to make. The recipe yields about 30 pieces.

Ingredients:

• 45 g butter
• 150 g dark brown sugar
• 45 g chopped peanuts (alternatively almonds)
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch of salt
• 75 g flour
• 2-3 tbsp water

Preparation:

• Melt the butter in a pot
• Stir in the brown sugar
• Stir in nuts, cinnamon and salt
• Finally, stir in the flour and water, one tablespoon at a time, to make a soft dough
• Line a baking tray with baking paper, tinfoil or silicon, and pre-heat the oven to 170C (fan oven)
• Form little balls from the dough. They will spread a LOT, which is intentional to give the flat, crunchy, lacy texture. Flatten the balls a little
• Bake for 7-10 min. They should be fully spread out and dark brown, but not yet burnt black. It’s okay to open the oven door to check
• They will be quite floppy and soft when they come out of the oven, so let them cool for a few minutes before moving them onto a cooling rack

Time:

With these amounts you should be done in under an hour, all depending on the size of your oven and how many trays you need of course.

Carbs:

• Total: 210 g
• Per piece: 7 g (if making 30 pieces)

Peanut Biscuits / Erdnussplätzchen

These peanut biscuits are very easy to prepare and very tasty. They are a great touch of “a little different” for Christmas baking, or really just a yummy snack on their own.

Ingredients (makes around 40):

• Biscuits:
  • 200 g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 60 g brown sugar
  • vanilla (vanilla sugar, vanilla essence, real vanilla…)
  • 1 pinch cinnamon
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 80 g butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbsp peanut butter (smooth)
• Decoration:
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 100 g unsalted peanuts, halved

Preparation:

• Knead all the ingredients into a smooth dough
• Form a roll from the dough, around 5 cm (2 in) diameter
• Chill the roll in the fridge for 1 h
• Cut into slices, between 1/2 and 1 cm thick (around 1/4 in)
• Transfer biscuits onto a cookie sheet or lined tray
• Beat egg with milk and salt, brush biscuits with mix
• Spread unsalted peanut halves on the biscuits
• Bake at 170C (fan oven) for 15 min

Time:

• 10 min for the dough
• 1 h for chilling
• 15 min cutting, brushing, decorating
• 15 min baking per batch (2-3 depending on oven size)
• just under 2 h overall

Carbs:

• 220 g total
• approx. 5 g per biscuit

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Shortbread

This is a small variation of my peanut butter shortbread recipe for those of us who like everything just a little bit more if it contains chocolate.

The added cocoa means that you will need a little more moisture in the dough, and I took the easy way out and just added some additional peanut butter to make up for the cocoa. Please note, as with the other recipe, peanut butter makes the shortbread quite brittle, so be careful when cutting shapes, and make sure they cool down before you move them.

Ingredients:

• 150 g butter (soft)
• 115 g smooth peanut butter
• 100 g caster sugar
• 150 g flour
• 75 g corn flour
• pinch of salt
• 40 g cocoa

Preparation:

• Knead all ingredients into a smooth dough and chill for 20 min
• Heat oven to 150C (fan oven; 170C if not a fan oven)
• Either flatten the dough on a greased baking tray or sheet to between 1/2 and 1 cm thickness (to cut into shortbread fingers after baking), or roll out on the counter to cut shapes (this is what I did and the pictures are from).
• Note – if cutting before baking, the peanut butter will make the dough more brittle than normal shortbread, so be extra careful and avoid shapes with tiiiiiiny features as they will break off. 
• Note 2 – each time you put the remainder of the dough together to roll out again it’ll have warmed up some and become less stiff, so keep the repeats to a minimum or, once the first tray is filled, put the dough back into the fridge for a while.
• Transfer cut shapes onto a sheet or tray lined with baking paper. If you’re planning to stamp them, do this after the transfer.
• Bake for 20 min, until they get browner at the edges.
• Wait until cool before moving them onto a rack, when warm the shortbread tends to break when moved.
• Larger shapes can be scored with a knife to later be broken up into pieces and shared with friends and family.

The stats:

Time needed:

• Active working time:  around 1 h if cutting pre-baking, stamping, decorating with chocolate and all that
• Chilling, baking and cooling: around 1 h 20 if making two small trays

Carbs:

• Total: Approx. 320 g
• Per piece: totally depends on how many and of what size you end up making… I think for this amount aiming for around 32 (with 10 g carbs each) would be reasonable