Today I am sharing my favorite gingerbread cookie recipe to make the most delicious Christmas cookies. You can use this recipe to make gingerbread houses and decorated gingerbread cookies.
Gingerbread is becoming more and more popular in Holland, although speculaas is still the most popular spiced cookie. You can find gingerbread cookies in Holland a little better these days than a few years ago when I decided to make them myself.
These are the best gingerbread cookies I have ever had, much better than the ones you can buy in the store (here). The reason I think these cookies turned out so delicious is because the spicy flavor of the gingerbread spices did not become too overwhelming.
This has to do with the amount of spices I used in the recipe, but also because I like to make my own gingerbread spice mix.
This spice mix is tailored to my taste and you only need four types of spices: ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and gingerbread. In proportion, you need the most ginger and cinnamon, with the ginger tasting well above.
If you want to make gingerbread cookies, you can choose from a variety of cookie cutters. The most popular is the gingerbread man cookie cutter. The jolly cookie man is a part of Christmas. But of course you have many more options. How about a cookie cutter shaped like a beautiful star, a Christmas tree, a Christmas sock, a bell or an oven mitt?
BAKING TIP: This Christmas cookie cutter set is ideal for making Christmas cookies.
Aside from the different shapes you can give your cookie by choosing all kinds of Christmas cookie cutters, you can also vary how you decorate the cookies. I like to use white royal icing, which gives the cookies a classic look.
You can also choose different colors of icing and not only draw subtle lines on the cookie, but decorate the entire cookie.
An easy alternative to royal icing is melted white chocolate.
Like me, many of you like to decorate gingerbread cookies in the shape of a snowflake. I will of course give you more inspiration, but for now I would like to refer you to my Dutch blog, where I have a how to for gingerbread snowflakes with royal icing.
The pictures should be clear enough to get you started.
About two days. Just keep in mind that you may have to take the dough out of the fridge a little earlier or it will be too hard to roll out immediately.
If you’re looking for more tips, check out all my tips for perfect cookies.
You can freeze cookie dough just fine, it will keep for up to 3 months. I would then freeze it in sheets, so it defrosts more easily.
You can, but I wouldn’t. The dark brown sugar adds a lot of flavor.
You can call them that. They hold their shape in the oven which is most important for me.
I bake my cookies for about 16 minutes. If you want to make them smaller, I would start with 10-12 minutes. It depends on the size, shape and oven how long they’ll need.
If you’re like me, you probably want to bake all kinds of christmas cookies! Here are a few of my favorite christmas cookie recipes:
Today I am sharing my favorite gingerbread cookie recipe to make the most delicious Christmas cookies. You can use this recipe to make gingerbread houses and decorated gingerbread cookies.
Gingerbread is becoming more and more popular in Holland, although speculaas is still the most popular spiced cookie. You can find gingerbread cookies in Holland a little better these days than a few years ago when I decided to make them myself.
These are the best gingerbread cookies I have ever had, much better than the ones you can buy in the store (here). The reason I think these cookies turned out so delicious is because the spicy flavor of the gingerbread spices did not become too overwhelming.
This has to do with the amount of spices I used in the recipe, but also because I like to make my own gingerbread spice mix.
This spice mix is tailored to my taste and you only need four types of spices: ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and gingerbread. In proportion, you need the most ginger and cinnamon, with the ginger tasting well above.
If you want to make gingerbread cookies, you can choose from a variety of cookie cutters. The most popular is the gingerbread man cookie cutter. The jolly cookie man is a part of Christmas. But of course you have many more options. How about a cookie cutter shaped like a beautiful star, a Christmas tree, a Christmas sock, a bell or an oven mitt?
BAKING TIP: This Christmas cookie cutter set is ideal for making Christmas cookies.
Aside from the different shapes you can give your cookie by choosing all kinds of Christmas cookie cutters, you can also vary how you decorate the cookies. I like to use white royal icing, which gives the cookies a classic look.
You can also choose different colors of icing and not only draw subtle lines on the cookie, but decorate the entire cookie.
An easy alternative to royal icing is melted white chocolate.
Like me, many of you like to decorate gingerbread cookies in the shape of a snowflake. I will of course give you more inspiration, but for now I would like to refer you to my Dutch blog, where I have a how to for gingerbread snowflakes with royal icing.
The pictures should be clear enough to get you started.
About two days. Just keep in mind that you may have to take the dough out of the fridge a little earlier or it will be too hard to roll out immediately.
If you’re looking for more tips, check out all my tips for perfect cookies.
You can freeze cookie dough just fine, it will keep for up to 3 months. I would then freeze it in sheets, so it defrosts more easily.
You can, but I wouldn’t. The dark brown sugar adds a lot of flavor.
You can call them that. They hold their shape in the oven which is most important for me.
I bake my cookies for about 16 minutes. If you want to make them smaller, I would start with 10-12 minutes. It depends on the size, shape and oven how long they’ll need.
If you’re like me, you probably want to bake all kinds of christmas cookies! Here are a few of my favorite christmas cookie recipes:
Perfect to make yourself and to have around the house during the holidays: gingerbread spices. In the Netherlands, this spice mix is hard to come by, so I always make it myself.
I used to just add the spices for gingerbread recipes separately with each recipe, but that’s totally impractical. Especially if you like to bake with gingerbread spices like I do.
From now on, I (and you!) won’t have to deal with loose spices in every recipe, because I’ve made my own gingerbread spice mix. Since I wrote this recipe, the jar has already been refilled with a new homemade gingerbread spice mix. It went through several Christmas recipes I made in the last few weeks.
If you love gingerbread, I recommend you make enough and stock up 😉
As mentioned above, these spices are not easily available in the Netherlands. Therefore, an alternative is often chosen: Speculaas spice mix! This is a really typical Dutch spice mix, and of course I have a recipe for it.
Pumpkin spice is also a good alternative. Just remember that your recipe will taste different if you use an alternative.
Every year I bake something with that famous gingerbread flavor. It’s a bit like our speculaas spice mix, but this gingerbread spice mix obviously contains more ginger.
While cinnamon is the dominant spice in the speculaas spice mix and usually at least 5-6 spices are added, the gingerbread spice mix is a bit simpler.
The gingerbread spice mix contains as much ginger as cinnamon, but because ginger is quite strong, you will taste it more. In addition, nutmeg and cloves come through, making it a truly wintry flavor combination.
Of course, you can make it your own spice blend. That’s part of the fun. For example, don’t like nutmeg or cloves? You can halve the amount.
Of all the spices in the ingredient list, I use the powder variety. So a mortar is not necessary.
Absolutely. Just as speculaas spice mix tastes great in a stew, so does gingerbread spice mix. Experiment and share your results in the comments so other readers (and me 😉 ) can enjoy.
Basically, you can use any glass jar that you can seal airtight. Personally, I use a small jar like the one in the picture.
Scones are perfect for high tea, weekend breakfasts and of course the holiday season. You can serve them for breakfast, brunch or even lunch. This gingerbread scones recipe is perfect for Christmas breakfast. Serve with clotted cream and – perfect for this time of year – homemade cranberry compote.
Not a fan of cranberry compote? You can use any jam you like. The scones are quick to make, so you can bake them in the morning or make them in advance and heat them up just before you need them. The choice is yours! Looking for a classic scones recipes, I have that one too!
Making these gingerbread scones is super easy to do and with the delicious gingerbread flavors it is one of my favorite things to serve on Christmas morning.
It took me a while before I learned to love baking my own scones. It also meant several failed attempts but there is nothing better than homemade scones and once I got the hang of it, it turned out they are really not that complicated to make.
For making these easy gingerbread scones you will need the following (make sure to check the recipe card for full details)
For making the scones you don’t even need a food processor. Just a large bowl and your hands. How’s that for convenience?
You place the butter and the self rising flour in a bowl and you use your fingers to rub them into coarse crumbs. Now add the other dry ingredients (sugar, salt and gingerbread spices) and mix it through.
Add the milk in and work it into a firm dough. You can use a wooden spoon or rubber spatula or your hands to do this. Your hands will be the best tool. Don’t overwork the dough!
Now roll the dough into a ball and shape it into a flat disc of around 3 centimers thick (a little more than one inch). This is best done on a lightly floured surface. Use a pastry cutter or cookie cutter and cut the dough into 8 equal sized circles or equal wedges like I did here. Place them on a prepared baking sheet with parchment paper and brush the tops of the scones with a little bit of milk. You can use egg wash (one egg yolk) instead of the milk if you prefer.
Bake them in the preheated oven for around 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Usually you want a good scone to not be very brown, but due to the gingerbread spices the looks of this scone is slightly different than your normal scone.
You can serve them hot or let them cool on a wire rack to room temperature. Serve with clotted cream and cranberry compote. The flavor of these scones is just absolutely fantastic and goes so well with a nice cup of coffee.
With scones the saying goes; as little as possible. You should not overwork your flour mixture as that will result in tough scones that are too firm.
You can keep them in an airtight container for 2-3 days. Don’t place them in the fridge. In the freezer they last for 3 months.
I learned from an English lady that how you cut out the scones is important. Twisting and turning your cutter might result in scones that don’t rise as well. The trick is to push down and take the cutter away. No twisting and turning! This should help with making them rise properly. Also they need to bake in a hot oven of 220˚C (430˚F) for perfect scones.
If you don’t want clotted cream or can’t find clotted cream (I’ll soon be sharing a recipe for making your own too!) you can also use heavy cream or even a thick sweetened Greek yogurt will be delicious.
Speculaasbrokken are typically Dutch and are often eaten in the fall and winter, especially around Sinterklaas. However, they are available all year round, and as far as I’m concerned, just make your own speculaasbrokken with this easy recipe.
Speculaas is a very popular flavor in the Netherlands. You could call it the Dutch gingerbread. With a homemade speculaas spice mix you can add this delicious taste to all kinds of baked goods.
I love everything with that spicy taste. It doesn’t matter if it’s a traditional recipe or if I just turn another recipe into a Speculaas version.
Speculaasbrokken are a traditional Dutch recipe. In the store you usually buy big crunchy pieces, that you break into smaller pieces, with my recipe you get softer pieces. Personally, I like that best!
Another nice bonus: the house smells deliciously of speculaas spices when you make these speculaas cookies. For that alone, you’ll want to get in the kitchen right away!
The list of ingredients for speculaas chunks is not complicated, but each ingredient plays an important role. I’ll walk you through each one:
TIP: Speculaas and speculoos are two very different things but yet so similar, you can read about the difference between speculoos and speculaas here.
The main difference between speculaas and gingerbread is the use of spices. Speculaas spices contain more (and different) spices in total, and cinnamon is the main spice.
In gingerbread spices, both ginger and cinnamon are prominent, but because ginger has a more pronounced flavor, you taste it above them.
Even though I love the gingerbread spices the most, the gingerbread spices are also a big favorite of mine and I use them both a lot. Do you have a preference or do you, like me, like to alternate?
I have made speculoos biscuits many times, and so I am happy to share with you my two most important tips.
Making your own speculaas spice mix is nothing more than mixing a number of spices together.
This way you can choose the exact ratio between the different spices and create the most tasty speculaas spices.
And you can taste that in your speculaas. Use my recipe for speculaas spice mix to make your own jar full of these tasty spices.
I can’t say this enough: always let your cookie dough rest if the recipe calls for it. Do you like crunchy speculaas pieces? One way to achieve this is to let the dough rest long enough. The gluten in the self-rising flour will “relax” in the refrigerator, making for a crispier result.
Full flavor is another reason to prepare your dough the night before and let it rest overnight in the refrigerator. This will allow the spices to be absorbed into the dough and the flavor to develop.
After you have a cookie sheet full of speculaasbrokken, you probably won’t eat them all in one sitting (although I could). Fortunately, you can keep them well.
In an airtight container, they will keep for about two weeks. You can store them at room temperature.
In an airtight container, the cookies will keep for up to 3 months in the freezer. I like to store them between layer of parchment paper so they don’t stick to each other.
By storing them in a container that is not 100% airtight. This allows not only air to escape, but also moisture, which keeps the speculaas crunchy.
Personally, I use an airtight container because I like them soft.
A few things are important: make sure you let your dough cool well and long enough and use cold butter.
Also, make sure you do not roll out the dough too thickly and evenly. Optionally, you can leave it a little thicker at the edges so that the edges don’t cook faster than the inside. Finally, you could make the pieces a little smaller (i.e. don’t bake one big slice of speculaas dough, but more smaller strips) so that they crisp up more easily.
Remember that all cookies are soft when they come out of the oven and harden when they cool. So, you can’t immediately tell if your cookies are crisp enough when you take them out of the oven.
You can’t just leave out the sugar, you have to use a substitute that has the same effect as brown sugar. Sugar adds color and flavor as well as crunch.
You probably mean ‘gevulde speculaas’. Two layers of speculaas with almond paste in between.
Here is my recipe for Dutch filled speculaas.
The easy recipe you’ve been waiting for! 🙂 Traditional dutch pepernoten cookies. Also known as spicy cookies, pepper nuts or gingerbread cookies. In the Netherlands there is a never ending debate about wether or not these should be called pepernoten or kruidnoten. The official term is kruidnoten and most Dutch people would know this, but the most used term for describing these delicious cookies is pepernoten. So I’m gonna stick with that for the purpose of this recipe.
This recipe makes the one and only ‘pepernoten’ for me. When I was a toddler, the teacher gave me a sheet of paper with the recipe to take home when we made pepernoten at school. After that day, we made the recipe many times at home, adapting it to our tastes. It’s the ultimate childhood memory for me.
I remember that my sister and I were allowed to help my mother make the dough. Then we would sit at the table with our own ball of dough and a plate on which we could put all our pepernoten. When my mother wasn’t looking, we would sneak little pieces of dough into our mouths, assuming our mother didn’t notice. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
The dough for these kruidnoten does not need to rest in the fridge. However, it can still be a good idea, because the flavor of the spices will intensify even more.
Pepernoten are popular cookies associated with the Dutch holiday Sinterklaas. Just like candy canes are with Christmas. These small spiced cookies can be bought in stores from august trough september, but are eaten most from mid November trough the holiday itself on december 5.
This Dutch holiday has multiple treats and snacks specifically for this day, just like chocolate letters! People will often get the first letter of their name in chocolate.
First a little bit of history. Pepernoten (literall translation is pepper nuts) originate all the way back to the year 1700. To be more precise; pepernoten are from the 16th century, but kruidnoten came around a little later. At the time a lot of spices came out of the East Indies and for the sake of convenience all those spices got the name ‘peper’ (pepper) In reality the spices were nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and white pepper, which later became the famous ‘speculaas’ spice mix. And this is the same mix that is used for making Dutch pepernoten
So why add ‘nut’ at the end of the word? Well at the same time the spices were imported the Dutch also imported lots of nuts. And because the shape of the little cookies kind of looked like half of a nut the name soon became ‘pepernoot’.
To add even more confusion; there are pepernoten and kruidnoten. Those are not the same! I will share a recipe for Old Dutch pepernoten later on. But it’s good to know that while they are not the same, the names have gotten mingled over time and most Dutch actually refer to kruidnootjes as pepernoten. Are you still following?
But regardless of the history, these crunchy cookies are a staple during Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas) festivities. Saint Nicholas is not the same as Santa claus (even though they do kind of look the same and both have a long white beard) and ‘de sint’ is the patron saint of childen. His birthday is celebrated on December 5th or 6th and every Sinterklaas evening small presents are exchanged and loads of pepernoten are consumed! It’s a typical treat to serve on St. Nicholas day.
St. Nicholas goes around on a white horse and arrives in the Netherlands by boat. Just another difference between ‘Sint’ and Santa.
Making pepernoten is very easy to do. They are small crispy cookies and are shaped into small half ball sizes. The recipe contains really only a few ingredients; all purpose flour, self-rising flour, speculaas spice mix, brown sugar, salt butter and milk.
The flavor is somewhat similar to gingerbread although classic gingerbread usually contains anise seed and pepernoten do not.
You add all the dry ingredients to a large bowl, add the wet ingredients and mix it into a firm pliable dough. Roll into little balls and place each small ball on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Press each ball gently into the shape of a half sphere.
The fun part is that you can do lots of different things with the pepernoten and give them all sorts of different flavors, dip them into melted chocolate to make chocolate kruidnoten or add additional spices. A Dutch speculaas spice mix is not exactly the same as a pumpkin spice mix or gingerbread spices, but you can definitely use that for making these pepernoten. But it’s also very easy to make your own speculaas spice mix with my recipe.
If you make balls of dough the size of a large marble, 25 minutes should be long enough. This is how I have described it in the recipe below. But if you make the balls bigger or smaller, the baking time will vary by a few minutes. In any case, try to make them all the same size.
In a sealed container you can keep your pepernoten for at least 2-3 weeks. In the freezer up to 3 months, but you can also freeze the dough. Have some leftovers? Why not add them to a dessert as well. They can be used just like any other kind of delicious cookie. I love adding them to my granola.
This should not happen, but you can add a little milk or make it easier to make the small balls by using wet hands.
Of course you can. Just replace the butter with a plant-based margarine and the milk with a vegetable variety.
Are you familiar with those pretty Dutch windmill cookies? That’s speculaas! We love those cookies in the Netherlands, and I’ll share my recipe and a lot of tips and tricks with you.
Traditionally speculaas cookies are made in wooden molds that give it the specific shape. But no worries if you don’t have one, you can still enjoy an authentic Dutch speculaas cookie without it. For the best experience use my speculaas spice blend or – alternatively – go for the pumpkin pie spice blend. They are absolutely perfect for the holiday season.
We bake (and eat) a lot of them in the Netherlands especially during the feast of st. Nicholas (or Sinterklaas) but you can find them in the stores all year long. These traditional cookies are also perfect for Christmas season.
You can use any other kind of cookie mold for making these or even a cookie stamp will do the trick. But if you can get your hands on the specific wooden mold used (check the photos to see how it looks!) it would be even more fun to make these cookies.
The weird thing is that I bought a couple of those speculaas molds a while back and then for some reason I never got around to actually using them. I think I thought it would be hard to use. We’re all so used to baking with lots of different kinds of molds but never really wooden ones.
But whatever what was holding me back was unnecessary as it was actually quite easy to bake with them. I’ll explain how to do it below.
It all starts with the speculaas mold. You have to “prepare” it and there are several ways to do this. These range from soaking the board in cold water overnight to rubbing it with vegetable oil. I also read that the board would become greasy naturally through use. That sounded the easiest, so I went with that.
This might cause the first few speculaas cookies to fail though, but I didn’t really care. After all, making speculaas is a case of ‘practice makes perfect’. This will work equally well for any gingerbread cookies you want to make using a wooden mold. The ingredients for both speculaas and gingerbread cookies are fairly similar.
Below you will find a few photos that show how to use the wooden mold. The tips I will give you have to do with preparing the cookie dough.
For making these cookies, cold and firm dough is easiest to work with. It will hold its shape a little better when you are ‘cutting’ the speculaas and want to remove it from the mold. The longer you work with a piece of dough, the warmer it gets and the more pliable it becomes.
If this happens, just mix it with a fresh piece of (cold) dough and you will instantly find out it works a lot easier. Keep the dough in the fridge wrapped in plastic wrap until you’re going to be using it.
When you’re making the speculaas cookies using the wooden mold, you want the imprint of the wooden board to be as visible as possible. I like to use self-rising flour for these delicious cookies. And since self-rising flour also rises slightly it enhances the print of the cookies.
You could replace the self-rising flour with all purpose flour, but that would obviously affect the texture too and not only the look of the cookies.
Another tip: put the unbaked cookies in the refrigerator (or briefly in the freezer) for a while, so that they go into the oven as cold as possible. This will also help with getting a clear print.
Of course it is a cookie so keep in mind that the print will always become less visible during baking. But as you can see from the photos you can still very clearly see the shape and imprint of the cookie. As with any cookie you place them on a cookie sheet or baking sheet placed on parchment paper. Once baked let them cool down completely on a wire rack.
If you want to go and buy a speculaas mold (like one of those windmill cookie cutter shapes), you can also check if the print itself is deep enough. If it is too shallow it won’t have a really good end result. So a lot to consider when you’re searching for one!
Now if you don’t know where to find a traditional wooden mold or can’t be bothered but still want to make these delicious cookies? There is nothing wrong with using something as simple as a round cookie cutter or use other wooden moulds you can find.
Dust your speculaas board with flour and tap out the excess flour. Too much flour in the mold will result in your print not being properly visible. Too little flour will cause your speculaas to stick to the board more easily. It will take a few tries to find the right amount of flour.
Take a ball of dough and shape it roughly into the shape of the cookie. Press the dough firmly into the mould and make sure there is enough dough. I personally like to have enough dough so it goes over the edges. I will cut the excess dough away but at least I know I have filled all the little nooks and crannies.
Use a good sharp knife that is wider than the board. Hold it as flat as possible and carefully cut away the excess dough. During this step, you will find that it is especially nice to work with cool and firm dough. If the dough is warm and soft, your speculaas dough will easily deform.
Turn the wooden mold over and tap it firmly on the counter. Hold the mold as flat as possible over the counter or your hand. If only the edges of the cookie come off, you can gently help remove the dough from the mold.
Like speculaas? I have many more delicious recipes online that are sure to please you. For all of them you will need my speculaas spice mix, which is SO delicious (and easy) to make yourself. Try the below recipes as well!
I love everything speculaas, it’s the Dutch version of gingerbread. Gevulde speculaas is a traditional Dutch pastry that most people make for Sinterklaas, a Dutch holiday. Is exists of 2 layers of speculaas cookie with a good layer of almond paste in between. It’s delicious!
We love the combination of almonds and speculaas in The Netherlands. Filled speculaas is the most popular Dutch treat with these two flavors. The cookie layers are made with speculaas spices and the almonds are needed for the layer of almond filling.
December 5th is our holiday Sinterklaas (he is the Dutch Santa Claus), and the gevulde speculaas is one of the most popular snacks for this day. Other sweet treats that are popular for Sinterklaas are pepernoten (little spiced cookies), marzipan figures, banketstaaf (almond paste filled puff pastry log) and more!
If you want to buy this in store, you need to be in The Netherlands at the right time, because it’s not sold year-round. Most stores will start selling it in august or september and it’s available trough the beginning of december. Sinterklaas arrives by steamboat mid-November, and after that moment al Sinterklaas treats are becoming really popular. And after Sinterklaas, we’re getting ready for Christmas.
Unlike the gevulde speculaas in stores, I prefer a little more speculaas cookie and less almond paste. You can see in my pictures that there is a modest layer of almond paste in between. Just right for me.
That’s the beauty of homemaking, you make it just the way you like it. This recipe calls for filled speculoos with a modest layer of almond paste, but make it just the way you like it. Do you prefer a thick layer of almond paste? Just put more in between, it’s that easy!
Most ingredients are easy to find, no matter where you live. But other are maybe a bit harder when you don’t live in The Netherlands. Speculaas spice mix for example, but I have my own recipe for that so you can make it yourself!
Absolutely. In this recipe, I use a 20 x 20 cm (8 x 8 inch) square pan, but you can also use a baking pan with a similar surface area. Want to convert the recipe to a round pan? Use my conversion calculator. If you use the button in my recipe card (below the small picture), all the ingredients will be filled in automatically for you.
Yes, you can. You can easily replace the egg processed through the almond paste with 20 ml of milk (dairy-free or otherwise) or applesauce. In this case, use (oat)milk instead of the egg wash as well.
I suppose you can, but I don’t recommend it because marzipan is much sweeter and has a different structure.
Maybe you added too much milk or didn’t wrap the dough properly before putting it in the fridge and condensation formed on the dough.
How do you fix it? Simple: add a little extra flour to the dough and dust your countertop well with flour before rolling out.
Of course! I use it for smaller speculaas cookies often.
If you are familiar with the Dutch ontbijtkoek, you know it’s good! It translates to breakfast cake and is often eaten for breakfast or as a nice snack. The most traditional way to serve ontbijtkoek is to take a slice of the spiced breakfast cake and spread it with a thick layer of butter. I’ll share my recipe for authentic ontbijtkoek with you!
The literal translation of ‘ontbijtkoek’ is breakfast cookie. But in English, that seems a bit weird and is not fitting. Breakfast cake or breakfast bread suits this recipe better. I prefer spiced breakfast cake due to the structure of the cake.
Ontbijtkoek is a very quick bread you make in a loaf pan. You can even make them smaller in mini loaves or even cupcake cases. This sweet bread has a wonderful moist, but dense texture. Especially homemade dutch spice cake! The flavors are amazing due to all the added spices and appelstroop. If you don’t have access to this Dutch product, you could also use molasses.
The breakfast cakes you can buy in a grocery store are usually a bit drier. Although they often have a sticky crust, just like a homemade loaf. If you are in The Netherlands and want tot buy one to take home: you’ll find it in the breakfast section. Usually next to crackers and ‘beschuit’ (another Dutch breakfast product).
A slice of this breakfast cake is the perfect sweet treat for me. I think my recipe is so good that it doesn’t need anything to go with it. But it is certainly possible if you want to. I will share my tips on how I serve my slice of store-bought breakfast cake (I admit, I still buy one from time to time).
Most Dutch people just take a slice and spread it with butter. It’s the most traditional way to eat it. Although ‘koekhappen’ is possibly even more traditional, I’ll tell you all about it after my serving suggestions!
I like to spread a slice with peanutbutter and if I’m in the mood for a real treat: I add some chocolate sprinkles. It’s amazing and you should really try it sometime. Another option I hear often is a nice layer of chocolate spread.
Time for some more Dutch traditions: koekhappen! It’s a popular thing to do on Kingsday, but you’ll see it at other festivities as wel. To explain what koekhappen is: you tighten a string from A to B just above your head and hang slices of spiced cake on it.
Participants must eat the ontbijtkoek with their hands behind their backs. It is a fun activity and usually not a competition. Although you could make it a competition to see who finishes their gingerbread first.
Ontbijtkoek is known by different names in The Netherlands, from honey cake to pepper cake (no, there’s no pepper in the recipe). The original name is ‘honingkoek’ which translates to honey cake. A long time ago, the recipe was made with honey. The honey was an expensive ingredient and was replaced with sugar. Which made it a spiced breakfast cake.
There are a lot of variations of breakfast cake. You could add nuts, ginger or a different spice mix. The recipe below is how I like my homemade breakfast cake best, for me it’s the real thing. But feel free to vary a bit.
I use all purpose flour, but you could also use whole wheat flour. With this alternative you don’t have to adjust the recipe. There are more options (rye flour for exemple), but I haven’t tested this yet. If you want to use rye flour, the recipe should be adapted.
Appelstroop is a key ingredient in ontbijtkoek. It is a (thick spreadable) dark syrup or jelly made from apples and sugar. It is most commonly used as a spread on bread, but can also be used as an ingredient in recipes for both hot and cold dishes.
If you are looking for a place to buy Dutch ingredients, I have a list of (web)shops that sell Dutch ingredients.
You can make it yourself with my recipe for speculaas spice mix. But you could also use gingerbread spice mix. It’s fine to leave out the ginger powder or use less than stated in the recipe. Most important is to have a variety of spices in you breakfast cake for the best result.
No, it isn’t. I love a slice of ontbijtkoek as a snack, but it’s definitely not a healthy snack.
As a Dutchie myself, you won’t be surprised I have many more Dutch recipes on my blog. Here are a few of my (and your!) favorites:
If you are missing any Dutch recipes, please let me know! I have many more Dutch recipes on my Dutch blog to translate. Here you can find all of my Dutch baking recipes in English.
Christmas cookies, I love them. And although I bake gingerbread at least once a year, I also like to come up with new recipes for Christmas cookies. For this holiday season I made cranberry orange thumbprint cookies.
Orange and tangy cranberries go really well together. In this case, the orange zest went in the cookie dough and I spooned some cranberry filling into the center of each cookie before putting them in the oven. The result: delicious jam-filled cookies. Crispy on the outside thanks to the layer of sugar and soft on the inside. Perfect for this time of year.
As with most cookies these cranberry orange thumbprint cookies use pretty basic and simple ingredients.
You will need the following:
As always make sure you have all the ingredients at room temperature. Starting by creaming the butter and sugar in the food processor or hand mixer for a few minutes on medium speed until nice and creamy. Add the flour, salt and orange zest and knead into a firm dough. You can keep using the food processor if you set it to a low speed.
Now wrap the dough (form dough into a disc first) into some plastic wrap and let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour. Want to know why you need to chill your dough?
Once the dough is chilled enough you form balls with around 40 grams (1.5 ounce) per ball of dough. They should be roughly 1-inch balls. Roll each ball through the cane sugar and place on a prepared baking sheet. Make sure to leave enough space between the cookies.
Now press a thumb in the center of the cookie and use a small spoon to add some cranberry compote. I use about 1 teaspoon of cranberry sauce or compote per cookie. Bake the cookies in the center of the oven until golden brown.
Let them cool a little on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. You can keep the cookies in an airtight container for up to one week.
It depends what you use to fill the cookies with. Jam or compote are typically added before baking, but if you fill them with a chocolate ganache or cream cheese you would do that after baking. For a classic thumbprint cookie the filling is usually added before baking.
Sure! You could use any kind of jam and even cherry pie filling is an option.
If you want to make substitutions to the recipe, for instance by adding almond flour or oat flour or changing the sugar to brown sugar, all the other elements will likely have to change as well. I have not tested this myself but you could probably make several changes by testing it thoroughly.
Press gently into the cookie dough balls and it usually helps if you use the back of a spoon or the back of a cookie scooper for making the indent.
You likely did not chill the dough enough, used butter that is too soft or not enough flour.
Most importantly is not to add too much of your filling to the cookie indent. It also helps using a thicker jam or compote.
You can! You can sprinkle a little bit of icing sugar over the top just before serving or sprinkle some nuts over the top before baking. A drizzle of white chocolate just before serving is also delicious.
If you love baking cookies, you might want to know why chilled cookie dough is essential for a perfect cookie. You might feel the need to skip that all important chilling step, but let me explain why it is a good idea to place your dough in the fridge before baking.
Chilling the dough is essential for both cookie dough as well as the base of a short crust pastry. If you’re the kind of person who skips this step, this post is for you!
It’s not hard; the only thing you need to do is to have patience for an hour or so. During that time you can start tidying up the kitchen and make any other preparations for your finished product.
Resting the dough is essential for chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies and almost any other type of cookie you can think of. I know resting the dough can be a bit of pain. You want to just get on with the recipe and skipping the resting part is so easy to do. You want to just place those cookies on the cookie sheet, plop them in the oven and get it over and done with. The sooner you can start eating that freshly baked batch of cookies!
But for the most delicious cookies you do need to have that little bit of patience. I’ll explain why that is.
One of the reasons for chilling your dough is that having used soft butter also means that your dough is quite soft. It will be stickier because of this and if you want to use it right away the cookies will expand and spread a lot more. So let’s say you are trying to make cute Christmas cookies and have used a cookie cutter. You want the shape of those cookies to stay intact, but baking the cookies right away will probably make the shapes less pronounced.
Once the dough is chilled (and the butter is once again cold butter) it is much firmer and will be less likely to ruin the shape of your cookies. You will have less spread of the cookie dough. This also depends on the recipe you use, I have a special cut out sugar cookie recipe for perfectly shaped cookies!
Now if you take your dough from the fridge after the chill time, it might still be too hard to roll out. It will crack and crumble. So when I take the cold dough out of the fridge I quickly and briefly knead it by hand before rolling it out and place the cookies on the baking sheet. The short kneading is enough to make the dough pliable again.
Yes, chilling your dough also means your cookies will have a better flavor! Cookies and shortcrust pastry actually taste better if you leave the dough in the fridge. The flavors will be absorbed and the final cookies and crusts will have a better texture. If that is not enough reason to give your dough time to chill!
The longer the dough is left in the fridge, the better the result. Personally, I like to make the dough the day before when I make cookies with spices. That way I know the dough has had a sufficient chilling time. Especially with gingerbread or speculaas, the flavor is so much better. You can even freeze most cookie doughs. Obviously frozen dough needs to defrost first, but it’s the ideal way to always have delicious baked cookies in no time at all.
Do you have a love for crispy cookies? Then make sure you let them cool. It will make a huge difference. Most cookies contain gluten, which makes them tougher. But when you let the dough rest, the gluten relaxes. Relaxed gluten makes for crispy cookies. And we all want delicious chewy cookies with lovely crispy edges right?
So as you can see, for the best cookies you just need to have a little patience and give the dough enough resting time. You will be rewarded with a delicious cookie.
Before I answer some questions on this topic, I would love to share a few recipes that definitely need a chilled dough for the very best results:
For resting cookie dough the times are the same for all kinds of cookies and for all kinds of basic cookie dough. Around an hour should be enough. If you have large balls of dough you might need just a bit more so the cold can get all the way through the dough. For small dough balls it might be quicker but to be on the safe side you can use a longer amount of time for the chilling process.
For best results you should always chill your cookie dough. It will give you more flavor, crispier and a chewier cookie and overall the best results. So for next time, don’t skip the chilling. It’s not impossible to bake the cookies right away, but know the result will be different.
You can leave your cookie dough in the fridge for up to one week. Any longer and you will need to freeze it. It will be good to use for up to 2-3 months. Freezing is not necessary, but it sure is easy. Especially if you want to serve freshly baked cookies at any time.
It depends. If you want to shape it using cookie cutters, you definitely need to defrost. If you’ve already shaped the cookies into balls you can just bake them straight from the freezer. Keep in mind that the baking time might vary if you do. Usually you should add 2-3 minutes baking time to the recipe.
This easy recipe for cream cheese frosting is perfect for a carrot cake, red velvet cake, and really any kind of cake or pastry. What about cinnamon rolls with a creamy layer of homemade cream cheese icing?
The first time I made my own cream cheese frosting was, of course, for a carrot cake. I was an instant fan of this delicious cream cheese icing and use it regularly for all kinds of other recipes.
This frosting is made with a few simple ingredients: a combination of butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract and, of course, cream cheese. The butter adds firmness and the vanilla extract and powdered sugar add flavor and sweetness.
I intentionally didn’t make the frosting too sweet, so you can make it a sweeter frosting if you like by adding more powdered sugar. If you add more icing sugar, the structure will be somewhat firmer.
This recipe is my absolute favorite frosting and a lot of my family and friends really love it as well. I recently made red velvet cupcakes for them with a nice swirl on top and they were gone before I knew it.
As you can see from the carrot cake in the photo, you can use this frosting to fill a layered cake. If your frosting is still a little on the soft side after you make it, just put it in the refrigerator for a while until it is firm enough. You can also pipe swirls of cream cheese frosting, but not as high or tight as you are used to with my buttercream recipe.
I like to use room temperature butter for this recipe as it’s easier to mix it until light and creamy. I do use cold cream cheese, because it will make sure the frosting isn’t getting too thin. The brand of cream cheese I use is Philadelphia, I like the structure and it works every time. Make sure you use a full-fat cream cheese, I noticed the cheaper ones are an other type of cream cheese and are often too thin and watery.
BAKING TIP: Read more about the difference between cream cheese frosting and buttercream.
I already named a few of my favorite recipes which are going really well with this frosting recipe. I will make a small list of baked goods that are perfect for this frosting. And after that I will list some ingredients that pair very good with the frosting as well.
As you can see, this frosting is perfect for fresh and fruity summer recipes, but also for the warmer flavors of fall. That makes it the best cream cheese frosting recipe ever if you ask me.
Yes, you can, but your frosting will be much less firm. This is because the butter makes the frosting firm in the refrigerator, making it suitable for filling cakes and piping swirls. Without the butter, you can still use the frosting on a sheet cake or spread a little on a cupcake. And it’s perfect for more of a glaze-like topping on cinnamon rolls.
You absolutely can! For example, you can mix orange or lemon zest (just the colored part of the zest, not the white-that’s bitter) into the cream cheese frosting, or replace the vanilla extract with another flavor extract. You could even add melted chocolate for a chocolate cream cheese frosting, it’s delicious!
This is almost always because the ingredients were not at the same temperature. You can try heating the mixture a little and mixing until smooth (don’t heat the frosting too long, you don’t want the butter to melt). Another reason this happens is adding wet ingredients all at once instead of in smaller portions. I always add a little bit, mix it well and then add the rest (in 1 or 2 parts).
I never do this myself, but it is theoretically possible. You can also make mascarpone frosting if you like.
You may have mixed the frosting too long. If you put your frosting in the refrigerator for (at least) an hour, the butter can set and your thicker frosting should be usable again.
For anyone wondering if this frosting tastes like cream cheese: yes, you can still taste the cream cheese. It could hardly be otherwise when it is the main ingredient. The taste is more subtle because of the other flavor additives.
This is a softer frosting. You can pipe small swirls and frost a cake just fine. You can’t use it to frost a cake and then cover it with fondant or marzipan though. The frosting is too wet and will make fondant or marzipan melt.
Cut out sugar cookies are the perfect cookies to use as a base and for decorating. They hold their shape and are delicious!
When I decorate cookies, these cut out sugar cookies are really my go-to recipe. They are my absolute favorite. I specifically choose this cookie recipe because they hold their shape so well while baking. Nothing is more annoying than when you’ve put a lot of effort into cutting cookies into a nice shape only to find out after baking that the cookies have deformed.
So you don’t have to worry about that with this recipe, this is really a recipe for making cookies that hold their shape. The reason that sugar cookies hold their shape so well is because of the amount of flour in the recipe; a relatively large amount of flour goes into the sugar cookie dough. Therefore, these cookies taste best with a layer of royal icing or some other fun cookie decoration.
BAKING TIP! Want to know why you should chill your cookie dough? In this article I will explain everything about why chilled cookie dough works best.
If I deviate from this basic vanilla sugar cookie recipe at all, it is usually for a different flavor variation. For example, it can be really fun to make chocolate sugar cookies by replacing 10% of the flour with cocoa.
And in the fall and winter, of course, gingerbread cookies are a favorite. Each of these variations holds its shape just as well as the basic recipe below. So you can enjoy different flavors as you get started with cookie decorating!
The nice thing about baking sugar cookies is that you end up decorating them, of course. This can be done with a simple powdered sugar and liquid (milk or water) glaze, melted chocolate, or royal icing. Actually, I always go with royal icing and occasionally chocolate.
If you want to melt a small amount of chocolate for decorating, check out my hack for melting chocolate in a piping bag.
Don’t feel like decorating? Try adding chocolate chips in the dough and make chocolate chip sugar cookies!
I prefer to use all-purpose flour for cookies, but wheat flour works well too. Some cookie recipes call for a specific type of flour, in which case, of course, you use the flour called for in the recipe.
Cookies always come out of the oven soft. So you cannot rely on touch to determine when they are done. With cookies, you basically have to rely on the recipe and your own judgement. With natural cookies that are light in color (no cocoa powder or spices), you will see that they get golden brown edges.
Ha, I have an unbelievable amount of cookie cutters in the house. All shapes and sizes, you name it, it’s in my drawer. One thing that comes in handy is a set of round cutters with different diameters. I also have this set of 101 Wilton cutters, which is a nice base to have around the house.
Sure you can. Wrapped in an airtight container, you can store cookie dough in the refrigerator for up to a week. In the freezer, you can keep it much longer, up to three months.
Personally, I prefer to use vanilla sugar. If you want to replace it with vanilla extract or paste, you can (2 teaspoons), but you will have to replace the 50 grams of vanilla sugar with caster sugar.
