Winter, time for some Speculaas

It's that time of the year again that we all get a craving for speculaas and wood fires, Winter.

Speculaas spices:
1 tbs cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamon, anise seed
1/8 tsp white pepper
Blend together and keep in a jar.


Speculaas dough:
2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup dark brown sugar (or rapadura)
2 heaped teaspoons with speculaas spices (see recipe above)
135 grams cold butter
3 tbs milk

Mix flour, baking powder, sugar and spices. Cut through the cold butter until mixture becomes crumbly. Add the milk, 1 spoon at the time, until it comes together into a dough. Roll into a ball and refrigerate, until cooled.

Option 1: Kruidnoten:
Roll speculaas dough into little balls the size of marbles and place on a baking tray. Before baking, cool the tray with balls for about 10 minutes in the fridge. Bake for 30 minutes on 170C degrees.
Let them cool on the tray for about 10 minutes.

Option 2: Speculaas pieces:
Roll out the cooled dough to a thickness of 4mm and lay on a baking tray,
Optional: press some (blanched) almonds in.
Bake for 30minutes on 170 degrees. Once cooled break into pieces.

I went rogue and cut it before baking, very unprofessional, but much easier to serve.

The dough can be kept in the fridge up to one week, or frozen.
Plain flour can be (partly) substituted with buckwheat flour, I used half/half and didn't taste a difference.
I've also made them with half rye/ half plain flour, the best I've tasted them.

Sophie's favourite: pink salad

Pink (Beetroot) salad:

4 medium beetroots, boiled and diced
3 potatoes, boiled and diced

3 herrings/rolmops, diced

1 sweet apple, finely diced
10 cocktail onions, halved
7 gherkins, diced
3 tablespoons of greek yoghurt
1 tablespoon of mayonnaise

Apple sauce

Apple sauce, the kids love the stuff, that includes little Alex. A great snack, but also my not so secret ingredient for making granola.
The Dutch call it appelmoes, they love it like Americans love their ketchup, those with less matured tastebuds tend to drown their food with it. I say baby food... Or the Australian way, with roast pork.

Autumn is the perfect season to pick up some fresh and cheap apples. I've just bought a full shopping bag at the markets for $3, they might not be washed and waxed like most apples you buy, I say hooray.

There are many different takes on how to make apple sauce, most recipes start with peeling and coring the apples, waste of time if you ask me...
Then they continue with adding sugar and a lot of other things. Why bother, apples are sweet and tasty enough on their own.
I make mine like my mom used to make it, and probably like her mum did. Quick and simple.

My take: wash the apples, quarter them and put them in a pot with a dash of water, put on high heat until it starts to boil, then resume on medium heat until soft, use a lid or you'll end up with caramelised apples.
Depending on your type of apple and batch size this should only take 15 minutes.

The trick here is running it through a food mill, it will take out the peel, core and stalks while pureeing the apples. My food mill  is only small (and cheap), works just fine, unless you have to go through a trailer load of apples.
If you don't have a food mill (yet), try pushing it through a sieve.
I've used red delicious apples, hence the reddish colour.

Oh wait, since I'm labelling it under Dutch recipes: sprinkle with some cinnamon before serving.

This recipe is great if you want to preserve some for later. For a step by step guide for canning, use this link.

Ontbijtkoek aka Breakfast Cake

A very Dutch thing is ontbijtkoek, mostly translated as breakfast cake. One of those recipes I keep sharing, I might as well post it here. It’s not really a cake at all since it doesn’t have butter or eggs. Rye flour, molasses, honey and lots of spices. How would you translate that? And I’ve never seen anyone eating it with breakfast... There would always be some after school, or whenever.

The original recipe his here,  a fantastic Dutch recipe blog. Make sure to convert the fahrenheit to celsius!

Ontbijtkoek:
1 cup rye flour
1 cup plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of cardamon, ginger, coriander and cloves (ground)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup treacle (molasses)
1/2 cup honey
1 cup of milk
pinch of salt

Mix together until smooth, pour into a greased cake pan. Bake in the oven for 80 minutes on 150 degrees celsius, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on rack.

That’s the original. Now I tend to use on or more of the following options:
- Double the spices
- Add 1 1/2tsp of aniseed
- Add 2 tbs of candied ginger
- Add a hand of sultanas and walnuts each

It will become better after a couple of days, just keep in an airtight container, double the recipe and make two...