My kitchen smells like Christmas, I smell like Christmas, my bag smells like Christmas...all because of one small batch of speculoos! I've been saving this recipe from the December roster of French Fridays With Dorie for this week. Any earlier, I knew I would get ahead of myself and fool myself into thinking the holiday season already arrived.
Speculoos/Speckuloos made its way into my life this year. I first became aware of this cookie when I read David Lebovitz's account of speculoo spread. Then in September, I went to New York City and finally obtained my very own jar of speckuloos spread from the famed food truck Wafels & Dinges. While I was there, of course I had a wafel layered thick with speckuloos spread too. It was truly an indulgence that spoke to my heart. Of course there was also the article by Francis Lam on the famed Delta Airline Biscoff cookies which are really speculoos. All of these conspired to build up my anticipation to finally make these delicate cinnamon spice cookies in my own kitchen.
Dorie's recipe calls for a mix of cinnamon, cloves, and ground ginger. Like she described in the recipe, the dough is soft for roll cookie and it is really for the best of my own sanity to roll out the dough between sheets of wax paper. Even after I cut out the shapes post overnight chill, the cookies must be transferred to the baking sheet carefully with the help of an offset spatula. I made an assortment of stars in three different sizes and baked them on three different baking sheets. They all came out thin and crispy. And did I mention addictive? Gosh, I can totally park myself in front of a bowl of speculoos and inhale them all in one sitting (but I didn't. Or haven't. Yet.). Following Dorie's suggestion, I made sandwich cookies with the small and medium stars. The small ones were filled with Nutella and the medium ones with orange-scented fig jam. What a lovely assortment when all piled up high into a bowl!
I love the Christmas wreath arrangement. Isn't it festive? However, I must confess that it is a shameless rip off of the cover of Chatelaine magazine's December issue. I was reading the magazine last night at the gym and knew I had to give my speculoos the same glamourous treatment. Instead of painstakingly decorating my cookies with royal icing, I took the easy way out and just sifted icing sugar over some of them to give a sense of dimension. They look so adorable. I just can't help myself!
Other members of French Fridays With Dorie are also cooking/baking up a storm this week. Check them out!
