Speculoos

Speculoos is a brown biscuit popular in Belgium and elsewhere. Those shaped in wooden molds carved with saints or animals are given as festival gifts, while small ones are eaten with everyday coffee. There is also the similarly named Dutch speculaas, but the combination of spices, the flavor of the sugar, and the thickness vary by region and maker. Later, a spread for bread was also created, so that the aroma could be enjoyed in another form as well as in the molded biscuit.

Brown sugar and spices that differ by region

The Dutch word speculaas refers to slightly different confections in the Netherlands and in Belgium. In the Netherlands, a spice mix of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, white pepper, and others is used. In Belgium, the word refers to a confection characterized by the flavor of caramelization; cinnamon may be used, but the same spice mix as in the Netherlands is not required.

Some Belgian manufacturers deliberately choose the name speculoos to indicate this difference. Belgian speculoos, centered on the flavor of brown sugar with a touch of cinnamon, and Dutch speculaas, which layers many spices, differ in the intensity and combination of their aromas, even though both are similarly brown biscuits.

The home recipe (the proportions of ingredients and the method) published by the Brussels confectioner Dandoy uses a dark candi sugar called cassonade. Replacing it with a lighter-colored sugar also makes the baked result paler, so the brown finish depends on the color of the sugar as well as that of the spices. Butter, sugar, spices, and salt are combined, water is added little by little, and once the flour and leavening agent are added, the dough is not kneaded for long.

Dandoy’s formulation also includes a small amount of cloves along with the cinnamon. Even within Belgium, which spices are combined with brown sugar varies from maker to maker.

Pressing dough into a wooden mold, trimming the excess, and releasing it

The pattern is not drawn on the surface but made by transferring the relief of the mold onto the dough. When baked, the depth of the lines creates shading, and the edges and raised parts take on browning. Even a flat biscuit has relief, giving it a three-dimensional quality different from that of cookies simply cut into shapes.

In Dandoy’s home formulation, the wooden mold is dusted with flour, the dough is pressed in by hand, the overflow is trimmed off with a wire, and the mold is knocked against the table to release the dough. Cutting off the excess dough evens out the thickness. When the dough is removed from the mold, care is taken not to distort the lines of the impressed pattern. If the dough is sticky, it is chilled before shaping.

There is also a method in which no wooden mold is used: the dough is rolled out to a thickness of 2 to 5 millimeters, cut out with cutters, and baked.

For home baking, there is also a method of shaping the dough into a log, chilling it, slicing it thinly, and baking the slices. No mold pattern is applied, but small biscuits of uniform thickness can be made. In Dandoy’s home example, the guideline is about 10 minutes at 180℃, with thicker pieces baked longer. Thin cut-out biscuits and thick wooden-mold biscuits also require different baking times.

The wooden molds that pattern the dough, and their carvers

In Brussels, on December 4, 2020, the craft and tradition of speculoos were entered in the regional inventory of intangible cultural heritage. The listing covers not just one company’s formulation but the skills and food customs involving confectioners, vocational schools, toolmakers, households, and others.

The listing documents also record that after the death of the craftsman from whom Dandoy had ordered its wooden molds, it was difficult to find a successor who could make them while preserving their handmade character. The skill of transferring patterns onto dough is also supported by the work of the craftsmen who carve the molds. From the custom of families breaking and sharing a large figure-shaped biscuit to the small piece served with everyday coffee, the occasions for eating this confection have expanded as its tools and ways of selling have changed.

Dutch speculaas sandwiched with almond

In the Netherlands there is gevulde speculaas (filled speculaas), in which almond paste is sandwiched between two layers of spiced dough and baked. Compared with a single biscuit made in a wooden mold, it is a confection enjoyed for the moistness and thickness of the almond paste as well as for its aroma. The Dutch Bakery Museum features this almond-filled version during the St. Nicholas season.

Thick, soft speculaas from Hasselt

Hasselt, Belgium, has a thick, soft speculaas. Belgian speculaas is not always thin and crisp; there are regional differences in thickness and texture. In Hasselt, the family of Jean/Joannes Antonius Dopere spread the confection beyond the city through semi-industrial production. In 1870 they applied for a patent, but because many similar products already existed, what was ultimately recognized was their individual product, “Speculation Dopere.” Similar confections had been made in the town even before the Dopere family business grew.

A theory tracing it to the mirror, and a theory tracing it to a 1749 word form

For the etymology of the Dutch speculaas and speculoos, the form commonly used in Belgium, there is an explanation linking them to the Latin speculum (mirror), because the carving in a wooden mold is made as the mirror image of the baked result. The Flemish intangible cultural heritage record also introduces this theory as “probably” correct, but it is not an established etymology. Old figure molds for the St. Nicholas festival impressed the figures of saints, animals, and the like.

Separately, there is an explanation that emphasizes historical vocabulary. A Dutch etymological dictionary explains that the present-day speculaas developed from “speculatie,” the name of a flat spiced confection found in a 1749 document. The old word meant not only “contemplation” but also “pleasure, satisfaction,” and it has been interpreted as a confection for gourmets or one crafted with imagination. Both the theory that seeks the origin in the mirror image of the wooden mold and the theory that seeks it in an old word expressing the pleasure of eating have been handed down.

Gifts left in shoes and figures for courtship

St. Nicholas Day in Belgium and the Netherlands is December 6. By custom, children set out their shoes on the night from the 5th to the 6th, and the saint leaves gifts. Sweet figure-shaped biscuits are among those gifts. The Netherlands Open Air Museum explains that a 17th-century painting of the St. Nicholas feast by Jan Steen shows figures of this confection, and that a cookbook published in 1772 in its collection contains a recipe for hylikmaker, a name evoking marriage. Figure confections given at the saint’s festival were thus also associated with names evoking marriage and with the custom of giving them in courtship.

In Belgium, figure-shaped products associated with December 6, St. Nicholas Day, are also made, and the craft of wooden molds is carried on at Dandoy in Brussels and elsewhere. Large confections shaped like saints and small rectangles served with coffee or tea differ in use, but they share the method of giving a sugar-based dough its shape and pattern with molds.

The spice trade and the history of the producing regions

The aroma of mixed spices was tied to maritime trade. According to Flemish tradition, wealthy people used spices that came in through the port of Bruges to display the richness of their hospitality. The trade of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which carried nutmeg, was also accompanied by monopoly and violence in the Banda Islands in the 17th century. Behind the spices used in familiar confections also lie unequal trade relationships with distant producing regions.

Production technology shifting from wooden molds to rollers

At sites producing large quantities, tools other than wooden molds also came into use. In contrast to craftsmen pressing dough into wooden boards, semi-industrial production uses copper rollers to apply small patterns continuously. Alongside large figure-shaped confections shared at home, small confections to accompany a cup of coffee came to be made, and both the tools and the sizes have changed.

Lotus’s current products for France use palm oil and rapeseed oil instead of butter, with sugar, candi sugar syrup, and cinnamon creating the flavor. They differ from Dandoy’s formulation, in which butter and brown sugar are worked together, not only in size but also in the fat used.

From a biscuit beside coffee to a spread

Lotus’s company history records that in 1932 Jan Boone created a caramel-flavored biscuit, and that in 1956 it was promoted as a product to be served with coffee in restaurants and cafés. Individual wrapping, introduced in the ’50s, made it easier to hand customers one biscuit at a time. Not only festivals at which large figures are shared, but also this way of selling one biscuit to accompany a single drink, led to its spread abroad. Its expansion into the United States in the 1990s involved its being served by airlines.

In 2008, the company launched a spread that keeps the flavor and can be spread on bread. When the biscuits are crushed into a soft spread, the wooden-mold pattern and the crisp, snapping texture are lost. On the other hand, the aroma of sugar and spices is retained, and it can be used in other confections and desserts. From figure-shaped festival confections and small biscuits served with coffee to spreads for bread and more, the forms in which people enjoy the flavor of brown sugar and spices have multiplied.

A Lotus Biscoff. A thin biscuit with the company name imprinted on its surface. Photo: Famartin, 2020-02-25, Oak Hill, Virginia, USA. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Downscaled version from the distributor; no additional processing.

Biscoff the trademark, speculoos the name

In 2020, Lotus announced that from the following year it would introduce Biscoff, the name it had been using abroad, in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France as well. A trademark combining biscuit and coffee, it made a name out of the practice of serving one biscuit alongside a cup.

The decision to unify the international trademark drew reactions at home. In the company’s annual report, Jan Boone recalled that while some people regretted that the speculoos name, though kept on the packaging, would become less prominent, others welcomed the overseas growth of a Belgian company. The change kept on the packaging a confection name tied to festivals and family memories, while bringing to the fore the product name that had been used abroad.

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