One of best things out winter and Christmas time for me is getting a massive selection of spiced biscuits and cookies in supermarkets. It was a flavour combination I hadn’t experienced before until I was approaching the end of Primary school and one of the German supermarkets which we are all too familiar with now, opened up in my hometown.
I had never been in a supermarket laid out this way before and was filled with excitement and intrigue at the products on offer which I had never experienced before. One of these was ‘Speculoo’ biscuits and I have absolutely loved these spiced flavours ever since.
What are Speculoos / Speculaas?
Speculoos are a type of spiced biscuit originating from Europe in the County of Flanders, in what is Belgium in current times.
They are normally quite flat, and shaped and stamped with images normally relating to the feast of St Nicholas on the 5th or 6th December in the lead up to Christmas.
For that reason they are synonymous with the festive season, but nowadays they are consumed pretty much all year round.
Speculoo spice consists of cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, aniseed and white pepper.
Scotland 🤝Europe
This recipe was somewhat of an experiment to see if I could combine two of my favourite sweet treats – buttery Scottish shortbread and speculoo biscuits.
I glad to say it was a success and one I’ll be making on a regular basis from now on. I might need to up the frequency of my gym visits to keep the pounds off!
Festive Spiced Raisin Shortbread
Ingredients
- 250 g Unsalted Butter
- 50 g Caster Sugar
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 250 g Plain All Purpose Flour
- 160 g Raisins
- 3 tsp Speculoo Spice
- ½ tsp Salt
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until it resembles a butter cream. It should look light and fluffy whilst retaining a slight gritty texture from the sugar. I normally do this by hand with a whisk as I like the mix to remain a bit coarse for my shortbread.
- Weigh out your flour in a bowl before adding in and mixing the salt, raisins and speculoo spice.
- Gradually add the flour mix to your butter cream. You can mix this by hand, or with an electric mixer if you have one.
- Once all of the flour is added in and mixed it should come together in the middle of the bowl. There may be some loose bits of crumble surrounding this.
- Time to get in with your hands if you haven't already. Bring together any stragglers and press and compact the mix together to form one big doughball. The dough will be darker than usual compared to other shortbreads you may have made in the past. This is just because of the added spices in this particular recipe.
- Lightly dust your work surface with some flour. Remove the doughball from the bowl and press it down to form a a flat circle around 2cm thick (don't worry too much about the accuracy of this, we're going to flatten it further).
- Dust your rolling pin with flour and roll out until you have a large circle which is now around ½ cm in thickness.
- If your dough is soft and greasy to touch, put it in the fridge for around 10 minutes to let the butter firm up and settle again or it will be really hard to work with and get your desired shape.
- Line 2 large baking trays with parchment paper. Use some cookie cutters of your choice, cut out your individual shortbread shapes. I normally get a yield of 24 pieces of shortbread.Remember to bring together your scraps of dough, re-roll and cut to ensure there is no waste. Always add a light dusting of flour to the work surface every time you re-roll to make sure it doesn't stick.
- Place your shortbread cutouts in the fridge for a minimum of 20 minutes to make sure the butter has solidified again. During this refridgeration time, preheat your oven to 160℃.
- Take your shortbread out of the fridge and place in the oven for 12 - 15 minutes. Keep an eye on them whilst they are baking and when they have risen slightly and the edges are just beginning to brown, they are ready.
- Remove the shortbread from the oven. Dust with caster sugar and allow to cool in the trays for 15 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.
