Laura's Speculoos

Speculoos - the spiced biscuits from our Eurovison, these are belgian biscuits

The recipe is exactly what is written on this blog post

Ingredients

140g butter at room temperature
80g caster sugar
120g dark brown sugar
4g four spices
270g plain flour
3g baking soda
2g salt
1 egg
1-2 tbsp water

In the bowl of your Kitchen Aid, work the butter with the paddle until creamy and airy, add both sugars and keep on working the dough until well combined.  Mix together the flour, spices, salt and baking soda and add them to the mix. When the dough is homogeneous, add the egg and eventually a little water.

Unlike cookie dough, the Speculoos dough will be very soft and hard to get together. With a serving spoon, drop it on a piece of cling film and fold it in then put it in the freezer for 2 hours.

Once the dough is firm, preheat your oven to 150° C (300°F) then line the dough on parchment paper or silicon mat into a square or rectangular shape 2mm thick.

If you have trouble lining your dough, cover it with a piece of cling film at least the size of your baking tray. This way, the dough won’t stick to your rolling pin, you’ll just have to remove it delicately once the dough is properly lined.

Bake it for 20 minutes.

When you take it out of the oven, the dough is still soft when you press it with your finger. It’s normal and it will be very helpful as it will allow you to cut the biscuits.

Use a sharp long knife and start cutting the biscuits.

You can also use star, heart, animals cutters if you want to have more fun. In that case, keep all the leftovers in an airtight box. You can use them to replace Digestive biscuits in your Cheesecake base! Let them cool down and enjoy them the way you like them!

A couple of notes.

The recipe calls for four spices which is a french spice mix called quatre epices. I made this up myself using white pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, allspice and cloves in a ratio of about 4:2:2:2:2:1. First time I didn't believe the recipe when it said I needed the 4g of spice the first time I made them but I would say you need that if not slightly more.

The dough is quite tricky to handle and seemed to break a lot when rolling out. I cut it into pieces before baking rather that marking and breaking after the fact as suggested in the blog post

Laura's Kourapiedes (or Greek Butter Biscuits)

First Kourapiedes, this recipe if from Faling Cloudberries a lovely cookbook

The Ingredients are

250g Butter
2 Tbsp of Icing sugar
1 Egg Yolk
1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
1 Tbsp of Brandy (optional)
300g plain flour (Sometimes I have needed more to get the dough to hold)
1 tsp baking power

Beat the butter till light and fluffy (this takes 5-10minutes in my Kitchenaid).
Add the icing sugar and continue beating
Add the yolk and vanilla
Add the brandy
Add the flour and baking powder (The book says to sift but I generally don't)
Beat the ingredients together till they from a dough

Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes (I did it overnight and it took an hour or so to soften once it came out of the fridge)

Take roughly walnut sized balls of dough and place on baking sheet, they don't spread much so you don't need too much space between each one

Bake in an oven at 180 for 20 minutes (My first batch were a little brown I suspect 160 in a fan oven would be fine or less time)

May - Eurovision Bake Contest

Hello!

Sorry it's been a little quiet around here lately... we're all busy little bees!

A few meetings ago, whilst enjoying our tea and cake, the topic of conversation moved onto the Eurovision Song Contest, and how atrociously fabulous it is. So, we decided that in May, the month of the song contest, we would host our own Eurovision Bake Contest! Each member got to pick a country from the list of eligible countries, and they baked something to represent that country in the contest. We then each voted for our top three countries; giving 12 points to first place, 10 points to second place and 8 points to third place, and the country with the most votes was dubbed the overall winner of the competition, and received a commemorative mug! (Which I foolishly forgot to take, so there will be an awards ceremony at our next meeting!)

Anna, representing Greece, baked a lovely honey cake; Jennie chose to represent Hungary with a traditional apple pie; Joy contributed our savoury course this month with her Italian bread sticks, homemade pesto, and some sun-dried tomato biscotti; Laura S represented Belgium with some very traditional biscuits; Mary-Anne baked some traditional Israeli honey-dough pastries for her entry; Nathalie, representing her native France, baked some delectable hazelnut madaleines; Ruth baked for Azerbaijan with some delicious baklava; Sally, despite not believing that her country, Moldova, actually exists, baked some delicious custard bread rolls; Stacey M also based her bake on apple pie, but this time with a cupcake twist for The Netherlands; I represented Sweden with a Princesse Torta; and Tom, representing our home and country great Britain, baked a delicious carrot cake in the shape of Big Ben! (Sort of...)

The bakes were eaten, the votes were counted, and the winner of the Cake'n'Bake Club Eurovision bake Contest 2013 was... France! Congratulations to first-timer Nathalie on this monumental achievement. (And I promise to bring your mug to our June meeting!!)

I'll post the photos a little later, but for now - happy baking!