Speculoos Spice cookies

The holiday season is definitely the perfect time to make, bake & eat all kinds of cookies from across the world and these Speculoos Spice cookies will have you hooked!

Speculoos (or Speculaas) spice cookies also know as Windmill cookies originates from Belgium/Netherlands/Rhineland. These cookies are flavored with a mixture of spices called Speculoos spice. These crispy, spiced cookies are traditionally stamped or molded before baking to imprint an image into them, like the classic windmill or Dutch girl.

I don’t have a special mold or cookie stamp, but still wanted to enjoy these traditional cookies. So I simply rolled them, used a round cutter and the cookie stamp that I had available. If you do not have a stamp simply just use a cookie cutter. They will taste amazing any which way you decide to bake them.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

300g Flour, all-purpose
½ Teaspoon salt
1 ¼ Teaspoon Baking powder
3 Teaspoons Speculoos spices (See below)
135g Butter, room temperature
180g Sugar, dark brown
30g Milk (add more for softer dough, see note below)

Rice flour for dusting

Directions

In a bowl sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and spices, and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture followed by the milk, spoon by spoon, mixing well after each addition. Only mix until the dough comes together. Add a bit more milk if the dough it to dry or if you would prefer a softer cookie. Only add a spoon at a time, ensuring that you don’t add to much.

Form the dough into a disk and wrap with clingwrap. Place in the fridge and chill for 2-3 hour.

Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C . Grease two cookie sheets and set aside.

Dust your working surface with rice flour. Keep dusting as you roll out the dough.

Roll the dough out to ½ cm. As you roll out the dough make sure that there’s enough rice flour underneath the dough and that it does not stick to your work surface.

I used a cookie stamp for these cookies. Start by using a round cutter slightly bigger than your stamp and cut out circles. Carefully pick them up and transfer them to the greased cookie sheet. Leave around 2 cm between the cookies. Now use the stamp and stamp each cookie. Dust the stamp between every cookie with rice flour. This will ensure that the print shows clear and keeps the stamp from sticking to the dough. Ensure that you press the stamp down evenly.

Bake for 8-10 min or until light golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.
Once cooled completely, store in an airtight container.

Speculoos Spice

2 Teaspoons Cinnamon, ground
½ Teaspoon Clove, ground
½ Teaspoon Nutmeg, ground
¼ Teaspoon Cardamom, ground
½ Teaspoon Anise seed, ground
¼ Teaspoon Ginger, ground
Pinch of White pepper