BAKE: Spekulatius (or Spekulaas) Shaped Spice Cookie
- Equipment & Method to Make Molded Spekulaas Spice Cookies
- How to Use Wooden or Ceramic Cookie Molds
- Spekulatius Cookie Recipe Ingredient Notes:
- Storing and Serving Tips for Spekulatius Cookies
- Related Links:
This German spekulatius cookie recipe (Spekulaas in Dutch) is a fancy traditional cookie. The delicately spiced cookie dough is pressed into carved wooden or cast ceramic molds with festive designs before it is baked, and the intricate imprinted designs remain in the baked cookie. They’ll make your cookie plates or gift tins extra special!
You can find the cookie molds in specialty stores or online, if you aren’t lucky enough to have some passed down through your family. Start a new tradition with your own cookie molds in shapes that strike your fancy. You can get them in all sorts of shapes, from Christmas and winter holiday themed designs, to classic Dutch windmills, to custom ones with your family name or initials.
I have a ceramic bear-shaped mold, holding a little heart, and a wooden honey-comb and bee patterned one. I will definitely be adding to my collection with more holiday-themed or seasonal designs though! Some of the ones on my wish list have cute little mushrooms, a reindeer, or autumn-themed designs like squirrels, maple leaves, and pumpkins, and of course, Halloween designs. There are spring-themed molds with bunnies, flowers, and decorated eggs. Whatever your flavor of whimsy, you can find some cookie molds that will fit your signature style, or just opt for one or two timeless shapes, like the Dutch windmill molds!
Equipment & Method to Make Molded Spekulaas Spice Cookies
Stand Mixer or Large Mixing Bowl and Sturdy Spoon:
You don’t need a stand mixer to make these cookies, but if you have one, use it! Otherwise, you can cream the butter and sugar and mix the dough with a hand mixer or by hand.
Wooden or Ceramic Cookie Molds:
What really makes these cookies distinctive, aside from the spice mix, are the molded shapes in the dough with fine details. You’ll need to buy (or inherit, or make, but most of us aren’t that lucky or talented) cookie molds, but choosing your designs is part of the fun. Most molds are shallowly carved from blocks of wood. You can also find ceramic molds online or in specialty stores.
If you don’t have cookie molds, you could also roll out the dough and use embossed rolling pins or cookie stamps, or even use regular cookie cutters and trace patterns by hand.
How to Use Wooden or Ceramic Cookie Molds
There are a few tricks to getting your cookies to unmold cleanly.
- First, chill the dough thoroughly overnight or at least eight hours. You can also make it ahead and keep it tightly wrapped in the fridge for up to three days before baking.
- Oil your molds! Follow any instructions that came with them, but if they didn’t have any, this is what I do with my wooden molds. I like to use the same beeswax & food grade mineral oil mixture that I use on my cutting boards and other wooden utensils to pre-treat any new molds (and to re-oil them before the first use each season). This will seal the pores in the wood, help protect the molds from drying out, splitting, or cracks, and also helps the cookies to release. You can also use a neutrally flavored light oil like canola, but because regular oils oxidize and get gummy as they break down, I like to treat them with the butcher block oil, which is inert but still food-safe, and won’t go rancid like regular oil.
- Re-oil the molds between batches. Use a pastry brush to brush the molds lightly with neutral oil (like canola or grapeseed).
- Flour the molds. Dust them lightly with flour all over, then tap out any excess.
- NOW you can mold your cookies. Tear off a small chunk of dough (the size will vary based on the mold) and press it lightly into the mold. You want to put enough pressure on to fill all the details in the mold.
- Tap the dough out by rapping the mold on the cookie sheet or your counter at an angle. Don’t tap ceramic molds on anything hard, but wooden ones are pretty sturdy. If you’re lucky, the cookie will fall out cleanly. This often doesn’t work. Don’t stress, it’s ok!
- Gently pull back the dough around the edges of the mold with your fingertip, or a small spatula or spoon, and peel the dough out in a sheet. If the dough tears, you can gently press it back together, or start over and remold the cookie. I usually try to press them back together before remolding, to avoid overworking the dough and ending up with tough cookies.
- Lay the cookies out on a lined cookie sheet. They shouldn’t spread much but give them a little bit of space between cookies.
Spekulatius Cookie Recipe Ingredient Notes:
Flour:
Use unbleached all-purpose flour for best results. You can try a blend of all purpose and whole wheat pastry flour. However, using whole wheat flour will yield a heartier, less tender cookie.
Butter:
You want your butter to be softened at room temperature before you start making your dough. If you use unsalted butter, you’ll want to increase the salt in this recipe from 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon.
Brown Sugar:
I like to use dark brown sugar in this spekulatius cookie recipe, as it pairs well with the rich spices. It also adds a deep golden color and subtle molasses flavor that is quite nice. You could substitute light brown sugar for a more subtle flavor and paler cookie- they will bake up the same.
Egg:
You’ll need one large egg for a single batch of this spekulatius dough. The egg adds moisture and helps the cookies keep their shape while they’re baking.
Extracts and Flavorings:
I use a blend of pure vanilla, almond, and lemon extracts in my spekulatius. If you don’t have lemon extract, you can add freshly grated lemon zest. Use real extracts, not imitation, for the best flavor. A little bit of quality extract goes a long way!
Spices:
The spice blend is the heart of these cookies. There’s a lot of cinnamon, balanced with allspice, coriander, black cardamom, nutmeg, clove, and a hint of white pepper. You can adjust these to your preferences, but try them with the suggested mix first. Adding ginger is nice! It sounds like a lot of spices, but they play off each other and the brown sugar to make a nicely spiced, balanced spekulatius cookie recipe.
Storing and Serving Tips for Spekulatius Cookies
Let the cookies cool for a minute on the pans and then transfer them to wire racks or cold sheet pans to finish cooling. Once the cookies are completely cool, you can serve them right away. Otherwise, store them to eat or give as gifts later. They’ll keep best in an airtight container or tin, and will stay fresh this way for several weeks. You can also seal them in freezer bags or plastic containers and freeze them for up to three months. You could freeze them longer, but the longer they’re in the freezer, the more likely they are to dry out or pick up off-flavors from other items in the freezer.
Spekulatius or Spekulaas Shaped Spice Cookies
Ingredients
- 6 oz butter, softened 1 ½ sticks
- 1 ¼ cups brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tbsp milk or cream
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp almond extract
- ¼ tsp lemon extract (can sub ½ tsp finely grated lemon zest)
Dry Ingredients
- 2 ¾ cup flour
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground allspice
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- ½ tsp ground cardamom
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground clove
- ⅛ tsp ground white pepper
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, mix the spices, flour, and salt and whisk or sift to combine thoroughly. Set aside.
- In a large bowl or mixer, cream the softened butter until smooth, then add the brown sugar. This is easiest with a stand mixer and paddle attachment, but you can use a hand mixer or a sturdy spoon.
- When the sugar and butter are fluffy and well mixed, add the egg and mix again until emulsified. Stop and scrape down the bowl, and then add the milk and extracts (or lemon zest). Cream together again until uniformly mixed.
- Add half of the spiced flour mixture and mix lightly on low speed for about 30 seconds, or fold it in gently. Stop the mixer, scrape down the bowl thoroughly, and add the rest of the flour mixture.
- Mix gently or on low just until the flour is combined. You may want to finish mixing by hand, or knead the dough two or three times just until it is combined.
- Wrap the dough tightly in plastic or seal it in an airtight container, and let it rest and chill in the fridge overnight, or at least 8 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350℉. Line your cookie sheets with silicone non-stick sheets, parchment paper, or use nonstick sheets (or butter and flour them very lightly as a last resort). Oil and flour your cookie molds.
- Press pieces of dough into your molds all the way to the edges. Trim the back or remove some dough if you used too much- try to make thinner cookies if you can.
- Rap them out onto the sheets, or gently peel the dough back out of the mold. Experiment and figure out which technique works best for your particular molds- I usually have to carefully peel my cookies out and then place them gently on the sheet pans.
- Bake them for 15-25 minutes, just until they look set and are very lightly golden brown around the edges. They will still be slightly soft but will firm up as they cool.
- Let the cookies cool slightly, then transfer to a rack or cold cookie sheet with a thin metal spatula. Cool completely before storing in an airtight container.