Speculos

Have you ever heard of speculos? Do you know what they are? When you flip a page of a cookbook, you will find recipes of anything with speculos. Foie gras with speculos crumble, speculos ice cream, Sea bass with speculos. It was so common to see this word everywhere that I started thinking that it was a new spice that I did not know about. Well, it turns out it is a cookie. Obviously a cookie that is quite fashionable here in France and in Europe. In fact, they seem to be the best sold cookies in France before Macarons…

My sister is an accomplished cook and baker. She loves to cook like me, but has a particular talent for cookies and cakes. In fact look at one of the centerpiece she made this spring for an event…. Puffs pastries in a shape of a wave.

Unlike me, she does this for a living. She sells pastries, cookies and jellies to specialized stores and online. Check her out if you can: www.douceurs-et-candeur.com
She was just given a big order to deliver for the end of the week. A mere 200 lbs of various cookies. So guess what I have been doing? ….cooking…
It is quite fun. I am learning lots since baking cookies is not what I do often. Well, if you don’t know what to do for treats at Christmas time, bake those cookies. They almost taste like gingerbread.

The recipe for about 40 cookies:

1 1/2 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of unsalted butter at room temperature, 1 egg, 8 oz of butter, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp of nutmeg, 1 tsp of 4 spices, 1 tsp of ginger, 1 tsp of cinammon.

In a bowl place all spices and sugar. Add the butter and the egg and mix until well blent. Add flour and baking powder and continue mixing. Shape a round ball with the dough, and with a rolling pin roll the dough out to a 1/2 inch thick. Place the dough in the refrigerator to cool. 3o minutes later, take the dough out and start cutting cookies in the shape of your choice. Bake in a warm oven for 12 minutes at a temperature of 356 F. Remove then from oven and let them cool at room temperature before placing in containers.