Dutch chocolate spiced cookies (chocolade kruidnoten)

Every year I make Dutch spiced cookies (pepernoten) according to my basic recipe. You can read all about the history of these pepernoten in the basic recipe post. The Dutch love baking them every year around Sinterklaas but they are also a perfect Christmas cookie.

I often give them a twist and today I am sharing one of my favorite twists which is chocolate covered spiced cookies. I love using both dark chocolate and white chocolate. But my favorite is milk chocolate. Now the good news about making these yourself is that you can pick any kind of chocolate you want! For me these are the ultimate holiday cookies.

Making Dutch chocolate spiced cookies

For making these spiced cookies you need the following ingredients to get going (check for exact ingredients in the recipe card):

• unsalted butter
• brown sugar – I use dark brown sugar
• self rising flour
• Speculaas spice mixture – make my speculaaskruiden yourself (or use gingerbread spices instead).
• milk
• chocolate (chips) – I used equal amounts of white chocolate, dark chocolate and milk chocolate

And while I recently told you all about waiting with baking until you’ve chilled your cookie dough properly, the good news is that you can skip this step for this recipe. It’s still better if you do as it does add more flavor but you can proceed right away.

Making the chocolate pepernoten

Making these delicious treats is super easy to do. All you need is a large bowl, a food processor or a hand mixer and the above simple ingredients. You start by making sure all ingredients are at room temperature which is always a good idea when making cookie recipes.

You add the butter and sugar together in the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk them until creamy. Once that stage is reached you add the rest of the ingredients (except the chocolate!) Knead it into a smooth firm dough. If you want to place it in the fridge, make sure to wrap it in plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry out. While you can proceed right away, it does help getting more flavor into the dough.

Rolling the spiced cookies

Once the dough is chilled (or not) you can start by making your dough balls. These should be small. Think marble sized. Place them on a cookie sheet or baking tray lined with parchment paper and try and make equal sized balls. Make sure you have enough space between the cookies as they may spread a little bit.

This recipe makes quite a bit of Dutch chocolate spiced cookies so you will probably need 2-3 baking trays. Of course you can also bake it in batches if you have only one baking tray. They need about 20-25 minutes in a preheated oven. You can leave them to cool on the baking tray. They’re a bit too small to place each one on a wire rack.

Dipping in chocolate

Once the spiced cookies are completely cooled it is time to dip them in the chocolate. It’s easiest to divide the batch of cookies into three equal parts. You will work on one color chocolate at the time. So start your first batch with – for instance – white chocolate.

You use a double boiler for melting the chocolate and a small bowl is easiest as the amount of chocolate is not huge. You want it to be deep enough so you can dip the cookies in. You start by first melting 2/3 of the chocolate color you’re starting with. Melt it, take of the heat and add the remaining 1/3 to the bowl.

You dip each pepernoot in the melted chocolate (placing it on a fork and dipping that way usually works best) and place it on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Allow the chocolate to set completely before you place all the yummy cookies in a glass jar or in a serving bowl. They might just be your new favorite cookies.