Recipe Wednesday - Dutch Speculaas Cookies

Some of you may know I have a lot of Dutch in my background, so when I saw a recipe for Dutch Speculaas cookies in a recent issue of Vegetarian Times, I wanted to give it a try. If you've ever had a "Dutch Windmill Cookie", those are kind of like a Speculaas.

When I started making the recipe, I was thinking, "did I even read this recipe before starting?" because I kept running out of ingredients and had to improvise on the spot! The cookies turned out great, though, so I wanted to share my adapted recipe. Don't be afraid of the number of ingredients - these go together pretty quickly.

Dutch Speculaas Cookies

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup spelt flour
3/4 cup sorghum flour
3/4 cup almond meal/flour
4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teapoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/4 cup extra virgin coconut oil
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
2 cups sucanat
2 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons unsulfured molasses
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 egg
1 cup slivered almonds, toasted (optional)


1. Blend together flours, spices, baking soda, salt and pepper.

2. With an electric mixer, cream butter, coconut oil and pumpkin until smooth. Add sucanat, honey and molasses and beat until smooth. Add egg and blend until smooth.

3. Mix in flour mixture by hand, using a large spoon or your hands. Fold in almonds, if using. (To toast the almonds, place in a skillet over medium heat for 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.) I only had about 1/3 cup on hand, so that's all I used. Cover dough and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove about 1/4 of the dough from the bowl. Roll dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper until 1/4 inch thick. (I highly recommend using the parchment paper here.)

5. Cut with cookie cutters and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 9-10 minutes. Continue with remainder of dough, placing the dough back in the fridge briefly if it gets too sticky.

6. These can be decorated with icing, but the plain ones were "kid approved" so I didn't bother putting any icing on them.


I don't have nutritional info for this recipe simply because the number of cookies will vary. The recipe said it would make 48 cookies, but I made about 70! I know I was rolling the dough a bit thinner near the end, and my cookie cutters might have been smaller than what they used.

Enjoy! :)