Saturday 2nd December - Keeping Busy! Advent 1 bake.

 December 6th is the Feast of St Nicholas. I believe Dutch children leave their (or slippers, these days) by the fire place on the evening of 5th December, hoping to find gifts from St Nicholas inside them the next morning. 

I'm rather sorry we didn't have this tradition in our family when I was a child, not so much for the sweeties,  but because, when I look back, we didn't celebrate many Dutch traditions although my mother was from the Netherlands. I suspect she was more determined to fit in with the thoroughly British style of my father’s side of the family, and adopting all their British traditions.

As a gesture towards my mother (no longer with us) I have been working on creating Real Speculaas biscuits. She used to get the packets of speculaas spice, and packets of biscuits sent over, so I have been familiar with the flavour and texture of these biscuits since childhood. British supermarket copies are - well - just mixed spice biscuits, too thin and crispy, not luscious enough, too sweet, by comparison. I have a sense that the biscuits have been made 'strong' enough to survive mass packaging and transportation. 

I bought some Real Speculaas Spice - it was very good, but had aniseed and star anise in the mix. 

That's not how I remember them!

These look like speculaas, but don't taste like speculaas!

Today I think I cracked it;

For the base recipe, I used Nigella's Butter Cut Out Cookies. Since I had no wish to make 50-60 small cookies for children’s party, I halved the quantities. 

Spice Mixture; in a small dish combine

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon - be a bit generous 

3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom - be a bit generous

1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper

This gives around a tablespoon of mixed spices.

Add this in with the flour.

Summary of the Recipe (but it's well worth going to the website)

85g soft butter creamed with 100g half and half caster and soft muscovado sugar

Add 1 egg beaten, 200g plain flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder and the spice mixture.

Mix to a dough, chill (wrapped in cling film) before using.

Roll out fairly thinly (I just sliced it) bake on a lined baking sheet at 160 fan/280 ordinary or gas 4 8-10 minutes.

I roll the dough into a sausage shape and just cut off and bake the number of biscuits I want. Four fit nicely into the airfryer for a mid morning break.