Speculoos is a traditional Xmas season cookie that made its way into becoming one of Europe’s best gourmet cookies. Also known as biscoff, speculaas or caramelized biscuit, this cookie is europeans’ favorite treat to accompany coffee.
These crunchy spiced shortcrust cookies come in different shapes and sizes and now also in a gluten, dairy and egg free version.
Spectaculoos!! 🙂
According to the Belgian tradition, speculoos is given and eaten by children when St. Nicholas (the model for Santa Claus) is bringing gifts, on the 6th of December.
Speculoos traditional spices are cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and white pepper, which make your kitchen smell a lot like spice bread. Nham!
The cookies normally have imprinted images from St. Nicholas tales stamped on them, making each speculoos a work of art! And like every work of art, it takes some time to create so, if you prefer, you can always use cookie cutters with your favorite shapes and they’ll be just as tasty, I promise. 🙂
Speculoos Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown rice flour + more to sprinkle
- 1/2 cup tapioca
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp speculoos spice see recipe below and notes for other possible spice mixes
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 6 tbsp olive oil or other oil
- 5 tbsp almond milk
For the Speculoos Spice Mix
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- pinch of ground cloves
- pinch of white pepper
Instructions
- In a medium bowl mix flour, baking soda, salt and spices.
- Beat oil and sugar for 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. If necessary, use a fork to better incorporate the sticky sugar lumps. Beat in half the flour mixture and the milk. Add remaining flour and mix to make a light dough (approx. 10 minutes).
- Set aside in the fridge for 4 to 5 hours or overnight to allow the spices to permeate the dough and add extra flavor.
- Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF and line a small baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Sprinkle the speculoos molds lightly with flour. Insert dough into the molds, press firmly and gently roll over using a rolling pin. Trim excess dough horizontally with a knife. Gently remove dough out of mold with fingertips and onto the baking sheet. This is a slow and delicate process but totally worth it. If you don’t have speculoos molds, simply spread the dough and cut it with cookie cutters.
- Reduce the oven temperature to 180ºC/350ªF and bake each batch at a time for 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of the mold you use.
- Let the cookies cool on the tray for 10 minutes before eating or storing in an airtight container (cookies will keep for up to 1 week).
Adorei esta versão sem glúten e sem lactose 🙂
Aqui em portugal nunca vi a mistura de especiarias à venda, acho q tenho que fazer a minha, ainda bem que a partilhaste 😀
bj
sara
Obrigada, Sara 🙂
I would like to try butter instead of oil. Have you tried this? Would you swap one to one?
I haven’t but it might work just fine. I would use the same quantity.
Hello! I have a question about these speculoos cookies. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of tapioca…do you mean flour or pudding? Thanks!
Hi Monica! I mean tapioca flour/starch.
Hi… If I use gluten free flour that already contains tapioca or some other strach how much flour should I put all together? 1 1/2 cup?
Thx 🙂
Hi Ana! Yes, 1 1/2 cup of gf flour mix should work. Let me know how it turned out 🙂