Dec 8, 2013

Spekulatius and Oat Cookies

In Christmas season we all like to bake and eat cookies! :) Today I want to share some recipes for very delicious Spekulatius and oat cookies.

Spekulatius cookies
Perhaps not all of you know the Spekulatius cookies. That's a German classic when it comes to cookies. They have their very own sweet and spicy taste which comes from a special spice blend. If I got you curious now, just give this first recipe a try! :)



The origal classic Spekulatius spice blend consists of cinnamon, cloves, star anise, ginger, nutmeg and cardamom. Unfortunately, I didn't have star anise and ginger, but the cookies still turned out very delicious! :)

What you need: (for two backing trays of cookies)

240g flour
pinch of baking powder
120g margarine or butter
60g brown sugar
1 pack of vanilla sugar
4 tablespoons of milk
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
1 teaspoon cardamom powder
1/2 teaspoon clove powder
1/2 teaspoon star anise powder
pinch of ginger
pinch of numeg
2 eggs
pistachios and/or almonds for toppping

How to do it:
Mix flour and backing powder.
Start stiring the butter/margarine in another bowl until it's creamy. Add 2 tablespoons of milk, brown sugar, vanilla sugar and other spices and stir quickly. Add 1 egg, stir again.
Now add the flour-mix and form a smooth dough. Put the dough in the fridge for at least an hour. (put it in some plastic wrap or cover otherwise so it does not dry)
Now roll out the dough thinly and cut the cookies. Top them with egg yolk and some chopped pistachios or almonds.
Bake for approx. 15 minutes at 180°.

Tip: Replace about 1/3 of the flour with ground almonds - gives a nice additional flavour ;)

Oat Cookies
For the oat cookies you use a basic dough that you can flavour in many ways. I already baked them twice this year with a total of six different flavours ;)


Basic dough
What you need:

200 g margarine/butter
200g sugar
120g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
300g oats
2 eggs

How to do it:
Mix the flour, baking powder and oats in a bowl. Use another bowl to stir margarine/butter and eggs until they are creamy. Add the sugar and stir again. Now add the flour-oat-mix and form a dough.
And your basic dough is ready! :)

Now you can split the dough in portions and add another flavour for each of them. Then just use two tablespoons to form the cookies.
Bake for approx. 30-40 min at 170°.

Flavours can be for example:
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder mixed with 1 tablespoon of rum (or skip the rum if you're baking for kids)
1 package of vanilla sugar and chopped dried apricots or cranberries or figs or ... whatever you like! :)
1 teaspoon of cinnamon and chopped almonds or raisins
1/2 - 1 tablespoon of the Spekulatius spice blend
1 tablespoon ground almonds and some grated orange or lemon peel
Be creative! :)

As it's snowing outside right now, I want to share some more pics with you. Last week it snowed for the first time this year :) Not that much (but that's changing right now ;) ) but still, after weeks of rain all day long it's nice to have some more light from the snow.
And also long time no see: Blue sky and the sun! So lovely!! :)



It's so nice to have the sun shining through the windows again.
What I also like about the snow: Now you can see how the animals are partying at night in the garden again ;)


We have a lot of deers and rabbits this year. I think it was not that much "action" in the garden last winter.



But of course, they do some damage on the plants as well. I protected the small trees with little fences. But the phacelia I planted in early september for green manuring was already  eaten up in mid-november. (seems to be very very delicious... ;) ) In the picture below you can see my planting bed that I use for the biggest part of the growing of vegetables in the summer (besides the greehouse of course ;) ). And as you can see there are only some stems left from what has been 60cm high phacelia one day... ;)


They also liked the last marigold flowers and carnations left from the summer. But that's not that bad, that's living on the countryside and I just love it :)

Ok, enough for today.

I will make myself a hot chocolate now and enjoy this snowy sunday...
Have a very nice Advent Sunday everyone!!


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