Sinterklass and Speculaas: St Nicholas' Day

[Update January 2010: see now my further post on using a real speculaasplank here]

On St Nicholas Day (or its eve, more likely), households in the Netherlands may be filled with the smell of Speculaas, the spiced biscuit or cookie associated with the feast but well-known around the world in various decent commercial versions.

It's not too hard to make your own, at least up to the point of the characteristic shapes - mirror-images of the moulds, hence the name (think Latin speculum) - that are associated with the real thing. Although the crucial shapes were not on hand for us, making a more amorphous version of the cookies on the feast day has seemed to us a fair observance of Saint Nick.

Almond speculaas

Ingredients:

200g plain (all-purpose) flour
2 tsps baking powder
1 1/2 tablespoons spice: use a mixture of (some or all, to taste): cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, ground cloves, ground cardamom
125g dark brown sugar
125g margarine or butter
2 Tbps milk
50g flaked almonds

Combine the flour, salt, spices, and sugar in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add butter or margarine and pulse a few times until mixture is like fine breadcrumbs.

Add half the milk and process again; turn out into a bowl or onto the bench, stir almonds through, and gather the dough into a ball, adding a little more milk if necessary to make it clump together. Knead lightly (don't worry about the almonds, but don't knead too long either). Wrap the ball of dough in cling wrap or cover the bowl and refrigerate for a few hours.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

Roll out the dough and cut out shapes as desired. If you are using a mould like the traditional "speculaasplank ", dust it with flour and press the dough into the mould, then turn out onto baking sheet (see below). If desired, press additional flaked or slivered almonds into biscuits as decoration.

Grease a baking tray or cover with baking paper/parchment and arrange the shapes with some space for expansion. Bake for 15 minutes (check sooner if your shapes are small), and turn onto a wire rack to cool.

[Image of St Nicholas from the interesting work of James C. Christensen, available here]