janradder

In the Netherlands, speculaas are a traditional cookie made each St. Nicholas Day. To make them, you need something called a speculaasplank, which is a hand-carved wooden mold. This is mine:

It belonged to my Dutch great-grandmother, and I believe it could be close to a hundred years old now (though I could be wrong -- either way, it's old). If you don't have a speculaasplank, you can use a ceramic mold or even roll the dough out and use a cookie cutter. Anyway, here's how to make them:

1 cup softened butter
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/4 t grated lemon zest
3 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 T cinnamon
3/4 t ginger
1 t allspice
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t cloves
1/8 t baking soda
2/3 cup finely ground blanched almonds
vegetable oil for molds
flour for dusting molds

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and lemon zest. In a separate bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients (except oil and flour for dusting molds, of course). Slowly beat in dry ingredients until just blended. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for at least 24 hours.

Easy so far, right? Okay -- here's where it becomes a cherished Christmas memory filled with profanity and several failed cookies.

Use a pastry brush to oil the speculaasplank, making sure you get every little nook and cranny, but don't overdo the oil (i.e. make sure there are no pools of it left behind in those nooks and crannies). Like this:

Now fill each mold with flour like this:

Turn the speculaasplank upside down on a flour board and rap it with the handle of a knife so that all the flour falls out. Turn it right side up and each mold will be magically dusted with just the right amount of flour (sorry, I thought I had a photo of it but apparently don't).

Take the dough out of the fridge and cut off just enough that you think you'll use (it's surprisingly not that much -- each cookie is about a quarter inch thick) and put the rest back in the fridge (if you let it get warm, it gets sticky and that's when the swearing starts). Press the dough into each mold, using a tiny bit more than you need, like this:

Using a sharp knife, cut the excess off while being careful not to cut the board. When you're done, the speculaasplank will look like this:

Turn the speculaasplank over onto a board and rap the backside of it with the handle of your knife again. The cookies should all fall out nicely. But they won't. Oh, some will, but other's will stubbornly stick to the mold. For those, take the edge of the knife and, holding the speculaasplank upside down, carefully work the edges of each cookie out, letting gravity do most of the work to remove them completely. The first few batches you try will probably turn out to be a mess but if you persevere, you should get the hang of it. When they're all out, put them on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes at 350˚F, or until they're turning golden brown on the edges.