Speculoos

I sat in Racine, a beautiful restaurant in Lectoure, and after sending back half of the dessert as no matter how divine it was, I had no place to eat it, yet, when a speculoos arrived, I ate that as if there was no dessert before. That speculoos was amazing and later, luckily the chef, who is from Belgium, shared his recipe with me. I have made a few small changes, especially with spices and sugar, yet the recipe is still his.

350 g all -purpose wheat flour
5 g baking soda
5 g sea salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
5 seeds of star anise, crushed to powder
10 allspice grains, crushed to powder
10 cloves, crushed to powder
1 tsp ground ginger
200 g Demerara or Cassonade sugar
50 g Muscavado sugar
250 g soft, room-temperature butter
1 large egg


Sift flour into a bowl with the soda, salt, and spices.

In a bowl, using an electric mixer, whisk butter, sugar and egg for a minute. Add to the flour mixture and knead a smooth dough just until the dough comes together – the less you knead, the lighter the cookies.

Make a shape out of the dough that you want to see at the end. It can be square or round, as after spending time in the fridge, you will cut slices.

Wrap the dough in cling film and let cool for about three hours.

Heat the oven to 150° C. Prepare pans with baking paper.

Take out the cookie dough, cut 3-5 mm slices and place on a pan, leaving some space in between as they will spread a bit during the baking. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, Take out, leave to cool in a pan for 5 minutes and transfer to a cooling rack.