Surprize 'em with Spice: Soft Speculoos

Tomato, tomaahto, Belgians say speculoos, the Dutch say speculaas. It's not my wont, but I've been trying baking recipes out of the newest issue of Velt's member magazine Seizoenen (Seasons). Here is a recipe for soft speculoos. Very common here is speculoos ice cream.

Speculoos is a cookie from the Low Countries, dark brown, because rye flour is used, with Santa Claus spices: nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, etc, a true relic from days of yore when Portuguese and Spanish merchants opened up the spice routes. Unlike the Dutch, Belgians don't use aniseed.

Two caveats: one, this one isn't baked with rye flour. Two, extremely rich, very high in butter. I lessend the sugar content and served some pieces to the birds, because we were suddenly all wrapped in snow.

Soft Speculoos

By Emilie Heller in "Seizoenen"

Serves 4

1 kg flour
600 g dark cane sugar (I used 450 g, still too much for my taste)
4 eggs
500 g butter (this is a bomb!)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon speculoos spices (=a ready mix; I used cardamom powder)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat the oven at 170 °C.

Melt the butter, combine all ingredients.

Smear out the dough mixture in a deep baking tin.

Bake for 30' at 170 °C.

Cut the speculoos at once in smaller pieces after it comes out of the oven. Let cool, fast, in a cool place, and save in a tightcly closed tin.

Note: smearing it 2,5 cm or 1 inch thick isn't perhaps so appealing to eat - use two baking tins, and smear less thickly, and when out of the oven, try to roll the layers like little cinnamon pipes. I'd try that next time.

Some Baking Laws Defied: Bread Pudding from East-Flanders

The Laws of Baking stand indomitable and tall: defying them sounds a little like questioning Newton on the apple. The quantities are precise; woe befalls the poor soul who deviates from them.

I decided to do precisely that: defy the laws on bread pudding, and I have to admit: when the pudding came out of the oven, it had the texture of crème anglaise. I was almost cursing my war on sugar, but behold: by morning, in the pale morning light, this is what had emerged.

Bread Pudding from East-Flanders

Based on a recipe on p. 158 of De keuken van ons moeder - The kitchen of our mom (Homarus)
Note: the recipe gives quantities for 5(!) bread puddings at once - some moms... Here are quantities for 1 pie.

1/5 pack of zwieback (beschuit)
5 slices of peperkoek (a specialty from the low countries baked with rye flour and spices)
50 g macarons (type of cookie) (I used 2 marzipan filled whole-wheat cookies and some speculoos)
4-5 Betterfood cookies (the type you give to toddlers in the afternoon)
800 cl milk (*)
40 g corn starch
60 g flour
120 g brown sugar (*)
1 egg
1 knifetip cinnamon
1 knifetip banda foelie
candied sugar syrup (*)

My changes (*):
Instead of milk, 800 cl oat milk "chai": oat milk flavored with cinnamon-clove-ginger-cardamom;
Instead of 120 g brown sugar, 4 tablespoons of apple syrup;
Instead of candied sugar syrup, apple-pear breakfast paste (sirop de Liège).

Preheat the oven at 200 °C.

Bring all bakery goods in milk to a boil over high heat. Stir well, the cookies will dissolve.

Add the rest of the ingredients: egg, sugar, spices, corn starch flour. Don't stop stirring, and mix really well. Cook for a few minutes longer. Remove from the heat, let cool au bain marie in cold water.

Before putting the mixture in the cake tin and in the oven, add the candied sugar syrup to the mixture.

Bake for 60 minutes at 200 °C.

Note: bread pudding is mostly made with stale bakery pastries or stale raisin bread.