Almond Speculoos Cookies

Every day you hear more about Spéculoos cookies, typical and very traditional during the Christmas season in Belgium (where they call them speculaas), and also very popular in Germany (Spekulatius). I’ll tell you a few things about them and bring a almond cookie recipe Spéculoos that is very spiced and festive.

Speculoos cookies have three characteristics that make them special and mut characteristics:

1. The spices they contain: they are super aromatic cookies because they always include a wide variety of spices.
2. They are made with butter and brown sugar: the brown sugar gives them a special, traditional and unique wood-like color — speculoos cookies should always have a toasted sand color to achieve their traditional look.
3. They are made in very typical wooden molds and with reliefs that evoke Christmas, the nativity scene and often feature motifs that evoke the Christmas story of Nicholas of Bari.

Although traditional molds are wooden and highly relief-carved, many people looked for a more economical alternative, since those molds are generally very expensive and very much designed for Christmas, despite the fact that today Speculoos cookies are enjoyed year-round. In any case, we have found an alternative to the traditional molds! It’s the Lurch cookie mold, a mold made of Platinium silicone that ensures maximum durability and resistance, and a great definition of shapes... With engravings so sweet and familiar they make them irresistible! By its nature, it ceases to be an expensive mold, making it accessible for everyone to enjoy those beautiful cookies all year long.

So we leave you a Speculoos cookie recipe with an almond twist, which we hope will be the perfect debut for your cookies.

Lurch Speculoos Cookie Mold

Ingredients

• 115 g soft butter
• 240 g flour
• 110 g sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 pinch ground ginger
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 1 pinch nutmeg
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1 tsp milk
• 1 pinch baking powder
• Sliced almonds or almond meal*

*The almonds are to give an almond touch to the back of the cookie. You can do this with sliced almonds or sprinkle almond meal.

Preparation

1. Start by creaming the butter and sugar with your hand mixer.
2. Add the remaining ingredients and knead vigorously.
3. Once all the ingredients are well incorporated and you get a consistent dough, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill it in the refrigerator for 3 hours.
4. After that time, cut the dough to size and press it into the Lurch speculoos mold. Prick the dough with a fork so there are no air pockets. Remove the excess dough with a knife (after making one cookie, you'll see it's easy).
5. Spread some sliced almonds or almond meal over the dough and press lightly (we want a thin layer of almonds on the visible side of the unbaked dough so that when you remove the cookies from the mold the almond layer stays on the back).
6. Place the cookies on a baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes at 175 ° C. When they start to brown (not too much! you'll notice a toasted color at the edges), remove the mold from the oven and let cool.
7. Wait until the mold is almost warm and remove the cookies from the mold.

You’ll see what beautiful cookies! If you want to decorate the cookie relief, you can do it with melted chocolate or with icing. In the latter case, you can see the post How to make cookie icing.

I hope this Christmas is filled with moments as sweet as these beautiful holiday cookies!

Lurch Speculoos Cookie Mold