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You don’t have to buy speculaas spice in the store: you can easily mix it yourself at home. Here you can find out what ingredients you need and how to do it.

Speculaas Spice: You need these ingredients

Christmas time is speculation time! What makes the crispy brown biscuits so popular is their unmistakably spicy note. A special spice mixture is responsible for this taste, which you can not only use for speculoos: speculoos spice is just as good for refining Christmas dessert creams, cakes, tarts or hot chocolate.

You can find ready-made speculaas in most supermarkets. But you can also mix it yourself: You probably have most of the spices you need at home. Tip: To save yourself more effort, it is best to use spice powder when mixing. Of course, you can also grind or grate ingredients such as pepper or nutmeg yourself.

For homemade speculoos spice you need the following ingredients:

7 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg
2 teaspoons ground cloves
0.5 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp white pepper
Buy the spices for the recipe in organic quality and it is best to pay attention to a fair trade seal. This way you can be sure that your spices are free of chemical pesticides and have been fairly traded. If you’re not sure where to find what you’re looking for – this way: Buy organic spices: the most important brands and online shops.

Tip: You can easily modify the speculoos spice to suit your taste. For example, if you don’t like ginger, you can just leave it out. You can add some anise instead.

Making speculoos spice: Here’s how

Making speculaas spice is easy: once you have all the powdered spices you need, it will only take you a minute.

Put the spices in a small bowl and mix them together thoroughly.
Then pour the speculoos spice into a container with a lid – for example a screw-top jar. Close the lid and then shake the jar vigorously again. So the ingredients are definitely well mixed.
If necessary, you can add a sticker to the glass. This way you will know immediately which spice is in it in the future.
If you don’t have some ingredients in powder form at hand, but for example a whole nutmeg or coarse peppercorns, the preparation will take a little longer: You then have to pulverize these spices before you mix them with the speculoos spice. If you have a good food processor, you can let it do this step. Otherwise, you can easily grate the nutmeg with a kitchen grater. You can grind the peppercorns in a pepper mill or in a mortar.

Tip: You can also easily powder ginger yourself. To do this, leave a piece of ginger in a warm place until all the moisture has evaporated. Then you can crush the ginger in a food processor or in a mortar and use it in the speculoos spice.

For the speculoos cake you can use old speculoos cookies. Even after Christmas, the creamy cake tastes irresistible. We show you a simple recipe with a vegan version.

The speculoos cake enchants with a fresh note of lemon and Christmas spices. Making speculoos yourself is very easy – so you can use your homemade speculoos cookies for the cake. Alternatively, you can use store-bought speculoos.

Tip: Use old speculaas for the cake to avoid wasting food.

In addition to the speculoos biscuits, the cake lives from the aromatic speculoos spice. Together with a little lemon and subtle sweetness, an irresistible cream is created that makes the cake special.

Serve the speculoos cake during the Advent season, on the Christmas holidays or in the following wintry weeks. Here you can find out how to do it safely.

Speculaas Cake: A simple recipe

When buying your ingredients, pay attention to organic quality. Organic seals such as Demeter, Naturland or Bioland assure products that are free from harmful substances such as synthetic chemical pesticides. This is how you protect the environment and your health. If possible, also buy products from regional production in order to avoid long transport routes with increased CO2 emissions.

Ingredients:

100 g butter
200 g speculoos
20 ml espresso
400 g vanilla yoghurt
200 g sour cream
2 tsp speculoos spice
2 ELA horn syrup
1Organic lemon: peel zest
1 tablespoon cinnamon, ground
1 handful of speculoos

Directions:

Put the butter in a small saucepan and let it melt over medium heat.
Meanwhile, crumble the speculaas biscuits into small pieces.
Mix the crumbly speculoos with the melted butter and espresso in a bowl.
Cover the bottom of the springform pan (diameter 23 centimeters) with the speculoos batter.
Tip: You don’t need to grease the base beforehand as the cookie mixture already contains butter.
Put the yoghurt and sour cream in another bowl. Mix them with the speculoos spice, the maple syrup and the zest of the lemon.
Spread the yoghurt mixture on the speculoos base and spread the cream evenly.
Place the speculaas cake in the fridge for two hours.
Decorate the speculoos cake with some cinnamon and crushed speculoos cookies before serving.

The vegan version

If you want to avoid animal products in your diet, swap out the following ingredients for a vegan alternative:

Speculatius: When buying speculoos, make sure that the biscuits are suitable for vegans.
Butter: Replace with vegan margarine or vegan butter. Coconut oil is also suitable, but changes the taste with its subtle coconut note.
Vanilla yogurt and sour cream: Instead of yogurt and sour cream, buy plant-based products like vegan yogurt. You can get a wide range of vegan alternatives to these dairy products in health food stores and well-stocked supermarkets.
You can keep the cake in the fridge for a few days. The speculoos cake tastes particularly good with hot chocolate or Christmas coffee.