Spectacular Spekulatius & a Giveaway!

Here in our little corner of Germany Spekulatius are a holiday cookie tradition.  Gilding them is a new Mad Hausfrau tradition which will probably be frowned upon by every German within reading distance of this blog.

Sorry.  I am a Spekulatius rebel.

Last year I bought three Spekulatius molds at the Aachen Christmas market.

Here is the stand that was selling them.

Hmmm, it was hard to decide which ones to buy because I thought they were all so beautiful.

I settled on a man and woman, both in traditional costumes and an elephant.

To use the molds you first flour them to prevent the dough from sticking.

You then roll the dough out over the mold.

After trimming the dough off the edges of the mold, you turn it upside down and bang the top edge of it on the counter surface and the imprinted dough falls out onto the counter.

The cookies are supposed to be thin. You are supposed to press down hard while rolling the dough. Being the Spekulatius rebel, I made mine a bit thick.  I also found the thicker version to be easier to work with as this was the first time I have  used the molds.

The Spekulatius recipe is below.  I thought you might want the deal on the Giveaway first:

I visited the Aachen Christmas market again this year and picked up another pair of molds to give away to one of you.

They are hand carved out of wood, wash easily and on the back there is a hole where you can hang them on a hook or nail on the wall.  So if you are not inclined to make Spekulatius with them, they make a lovely piece of handmade German art for your kitchen or home. They can also be used to mold butter. The molds will be shipped anywhere. No geographic restrictions.

To enter to win, leave a comment on this post below by December 13th.  Using that random generator thingie, I will announce a winner here December 14th.

THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED. THANKS TO ALL WHO PARTICIPATED. I WILL TRY TO DO IT AGAIN IN 2011!

I consulted several of my vintage German cookbooks and a few of my Mother in Law’s to find a recipe. In general there are three versions of this cookie: butter, almond and spicy.

I ended up using the recipe that came with the molds which seemed to be a cross between the almond and spice versions. I did have to add more butter to the batter. It was way too crumbly. So maybe this is a hybrid version of all three.

Ingredients:

• 2 to 2+1/2 sticks butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 18 oz. flour
• 7 oz brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 oz crushed almonds (almond flour)
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon clove powder
• 1/4 tablespoon ground cardamon
• flour for dusting molds
• Gold dust and small amount of vodka for gilding

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Mix butter, salt and egg together.
• Half the flour and mix the rest of the ingredients into one half of the flour and add that to the mixture.
• Knead the other half of the flour into the dough. The dough should not be too sticky.
• Let the dough rest for 24 hours (I put it in the fridge for the last 2 hours)
• Roll out and cut into desired shapes or if using molds follow the directions above.