Christmas Biscuits

Because I am me, I spent most of my time in Europe last year eating seasonal food and buying trucs for the kitchen.  Among my favourite purchases were an assortment of biscuit moulds and cutters, perfect for Christmas.

In Brussels I developed a taste for the gingerbread biscuits known as Speculoos (or Speculaas), usually recognisable by their windmill shape, but at Christmas taking the form of Saint Nicholas for the December 6 feast day of Sinterklaas.

Speculoos-flavoured goodies are also a big deal in Belgium; you can get speculoos spread (kinda like peanut paste, but biscuity), speculoos macarons, and speculoos chocolates (Belgian chocolate with a creamy gingerbread filling).  Knowing I would be in withdrawal before too long, I purchased some ready-made spice mix and some traditional moulds, as well as a nifty kit to make miniature gingerbread houses.

Because I have followed their speculoos recipe exactly, I won't plagiarise Weekendbakery.com, rather, here is a link to their website:

http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/quest-for-the-best-speculaas/

Petites Maisons au Speculoos

 

I have hitherto only tried to make gingerbread houses once in my life, and that was as an inexperienced teenage cook with my friends Rachel and Marcella. A combination of the impatience of youth, having no idea what we were doing, and a subconscious nineties bias for postmodernist deconstruction meant that we never actually got the houses upright, but we ate them anyway, and probably remember the day a lot more fondly as a result.

I don't know if it was the result of the more forgiving physics of the smaller model, or of my new-found baking prowess, but this time around, I had a lot more success.

I used my special cookie cutters and speculoos dough.

I glued the pieces together with a basic royal icing.

Serve perched on the side of a mug.

Springerle

 

These highly ornamental biscuits originate in Germany, and what really makes them special is the artistry of the carved moulds that make the decorative pattern on the surface. Being unavailable for purchase here, I picked some moulds up at the Christkindlmarkt in Munich last year, but assuming you don't have any yourself, you could improvise with other shallow moulds (such as chocolate or fondant moulds) or look at your local craft store for a textured surface of some kind (I was thinking an embossing instrument or something). The recipe I used came from Peggy Porschen's Boutique Baking and although mine came out more burnished than the pale ones in the book, they looked and tasted fine.