Speculaas or speculoos, what’s the difference?

Posted: July 30, 2024 Last modified: August 29, 2024
Speculaas or speculoos, what’s the difference?

The words may only differ by two letters, but they are still two very different products from two different countries: speculoos and speculaas. Part of the difference is in the spices used. One contains only cinnamon; the other contains many other types of spices.

Speculaas from the Netherlands

Dutch speculaas is full of spices. The spice mix is made in a variety of ways, but my speculaas spice mix recipe includes the following ingredients:

  • Cinnamon
  • nutmeg
  • Cloves
  • ginger
  • mace
  • cardamom

Other common ingredients are coriander seed, allspice, anise seed, and white pepper. Every baker has their own favorite combination of spices to bake their speculaas with.

Dutch gevulde speculaas 1

Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas)

In the Netherlands, Sinterklaas is celebrated every year on December 5th. The Dutch version of Santa Claus. All kinds of pastries with speculaas flavor are part of it, with kruidnoten being the most popular treat.

Speculaas recipes

Convinced by the taste of Speculaas? Then I have some delicious Dutch recipes for you!

Speculoos from Belgium

Let’s start with speculoos, you may know them as the cookies from Lotus Biscoff. They also sell a Biscoff spread and even Biscoff ice cream. I find them all incredibly delicious.

Speculoos is the Belgian answer to the Dutch speculaas cookies. But where the speculaas has several spices, the speculoos has only one: cinnamon.

Now, it’s a bit of a stretch to call speculoos cookies cinnamon cookies, because anyone who’s tried them knows that there are several other flavors in them. Those come from brown sugar syrup and/or caramelized sugar.

Speculoos sandwich cookies WM-2

Why are the names so similar?

The Dutch word “loos” means “without” in English. Speculoos actually means cookies without speculaas.

The names are often used interchangeably these days, which can lead to confusion. Hopefully, after reading this article, you’ll know the difference and won’t get confused again.

A quick history lesson

The Netherlands had a rich spice trade with the VOC (Dutch East India Company) in the 17th century. All kinds of spices were transported from the colonies to the Netherlands.

Eventually they started making mixtures of these spices, and that’s how speculaas came to be used to make cookies.

But in Belgium they did not have access to all these spices, it was very expensive for them. So at the beginning of the 20th century, they came up with an alternative: speculoos. They used only cinnamon, but added brown sugar syrup to make them more flavorful.

A short summary

Even though the name is almost the same, speculaas and speculoos are two different flavors/cookies. Speculaas is a typical Dutch cookie and gets its flavor of different spices used in the speculaas spice mix.

Speculoos cookies have been created as ‘cookie without speculaas spices’ in Belgium. The brand Lotus is known for their speculoos cookies. The taste comes from the special production process of the caramelisation of sugar in the cookie. Speculoos often includes only one spice: cinnamon.

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