Mixed Spice / Gingerbread / Kruidnootjes cupcakes

To complete my Sinterklaas trio of recipes I decided to prepare some cupcakes with mixed spice speculoos and also kruidnootjes.

Since all our belongings are currently on a ship somewhere in Asia I had to prepare these cupcakes by hand. The end result might have been fluffier and looked better if I had my kitchen tools.

Quantity: 8-9 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 100 grams selfraising flour
• 100 grams granulated sugar
• 200 grams butter
• 2 eggs
• around 20 kruidnootjes
• 100 grams cream cheese
• 75 grams icing sugar
• 2 teaspoons speculoos spice
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsisus;
2. Mix 100 grams of the butter, flour, granulated sugar and the eggs in a bowl into batter;
3. If you're not using cupcake wrapper, butter up the cupcake forms so that the cupcakes won't stick to the form;
4. Crumble half of the kruidnootjes in the batter and mix;
5. Add the batter in the cupcake forms, filling each slot until the middle of the form;
6. Place in the oven for around 20 minutes;
7. In the meantime mix the remaining butter, icing sugar, cream cheese until the mixture is smooth;
8. Mix in the speculoos spices. Reserve a small amount for later use;
9. Once the cupcakes have cooled down add the cream cheese topping on top of each cupcake;
10. Finish off with a kruidnootje on each cupcake and cover with the remaining spices.

Kruidnootjes (Speculaas/Spice/Gingerbread cookies)

Just before Sinterklaas we decided to keep some of the Dutch traditions in our new home in Australia. Therefore my lovely husband baked some gingerbread cookies for us.

Recipe Origin: Kruidnootjes - Recept

Amount: 60-80 cookies

 

Ingredients:

• 185 grams flour 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 85 grams dark brown bastard sugar
• 15 grams speculoos spices
• a pinch of salt
• 125 grams butter

Method:

1. Sieve the flour in a mixing bowl;
2. Add the baking powder, spices and salt;
3. Cut the butter in small pieces and added to the mixing bowl;
4. Knead the mixture until the mixture has a dough texture;
5. Warm the oven to 150 degrees Celsius;
6. Add a baking paper on top of an oven baking tray;
7. Roll small balls from the dough with the palm of your hands. The ball should be around 1cm in size;
8. Place the balls next to each other on the baking tray;
9. Cook in the oven for around 20 minutes or until they cookies are browned;
10. Let rest and eat!

Notes:

• You can substitute the flour with wholemeal flour;
• There are other versions of this recipe that use milk. I never tried the recipes with the milk but there shouldn't be much difference in taste;
• The cookies will grow in size so the cookie dough balls should be quite small.

Speculoos Spices

The Dutch celebrate Sinterklaas on the evening of 5th December. This day has it's own set of sweets like the chocolate letters, kruidnootjes (speculoos biscuits/Biscoff biscuits) and pepernootjes. The ingredient that is nearly always present in these traditional sweets is speculoos. In the Netherlands you can buy the speculoos spices however I haven't yet found these spices in Melbourne. So to savour these typical Sinterklaas biscuits I prepared the spice mix myself.

Recipe origin: Dutch Food - Speculaskruiden

Ingredients:

• 4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp ground mace
• 1/3 tsp ground ginger
• a pinch white pepper
• a pinch ground cardamom
• a pinch of ground coriander seeds
• a pinch of ground anise seeds
• a pinch of grated nutmeg

Method:

1. Mix all spices together;
2. Use in any Sinterklaas recipes!

[Image Source: Culicool Recept Speculaaskruiden]