Holidays

Paleo Gluten-free Speculoos

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Should you want to make figures out of the speculoos, you can buy skins for them at shops like Dille&Kamille. We found it quite tricky ourselves despite using arrowroot to keep the dough from sticking to the wood.

Simply making a slice about half a cm high is a bit easier. Break into pieces after baking and you're done.

Ingredients:

120 grams Chufa flour Extra Fine
30 grams of arrowroot
40 g coconut blossom sugar
50 g cold butter or coconut oil
1.5 tsp specula spice
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
2 tbsp water or a milk of your choice

Put all the ingredients together and make a ball with your hands or a food processor. Leave in the fridge for at least an hour to let the dough become a bit firmer.

Bake on baking paper for 15 minutes at 170c.

Paleo Gluten-free Taai Taai

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Taai Taai is tough because of the honey. We had initially used 100 grams of honey but that was way too sweet.

We replaced half the honey with one egg white and then it was fine!

Ingredients:

40 g Chufa flour Extra Fine
20 grams of arrowroot
50 g almond flour
50 g honey
1 egg white, save yolk
1 tsp speculoos or biscuit spices
1 tsp ground anise (we finely ground whole anise in the Nutribullet)
1 tsp tartar powder / Cream of Tartar
pinch of salt
pinch of black pepper

Put everything in a mixing bowl and mix with a mixer to crumbly dough.

Leave to rest in the fridge for an hour or overnight.

From this quantity, make 4 slices 1 cm thick. Brush thinly with egg yolk and bake in the oven for 10 minutes at 200c.

Nut-free spice

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Notenvrij spijs

Many Sinterklaas recipes are based on spice, normally made from almonds. Another name for chufas is almonds, so they are already similar. There are also similarities in terms of taste and the result is delicious!

The nice thing about chufa flour is the sweetness that the flour already has by itself. As a result, only a little extra sweetness is needed. Some substantiation in the recipe:

  • oil goes with the paste because chufa contains less fat than regular almonds, about 25 grams instead of 60 grams. A little fat is nice, though. We use our chufa oil because of its neutral flavour and because it does not oxidise when heated.
  • If you don't want to use egg, it can be well replaced by about a tablespoon of water or a combination of some water and some extra oil.
  • the lemon can quickly become overpowering but it really gives the spice flavour.
  • As regards colour, we use the lightest possible cream honey as a sweetener. The whiter the sweetener, the better the light colour of the sponge remains.

Ingredients:

  • 100 g chufa flour extra fine
  • zest of half an organic lemon
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 25 grams of chufa oil
  • 25 g clear honey
  • 25 grams of water
  • yolk of 1 egg or water

Preparation:

Mix all ingredients for the paste, except the egg, in a food processor until fine. Store this in the fridge until use. Before using, add the egg yolk or water to make the paste more creamy.

Paleo Gluten-free Kruidmoppen (or gingerbread/peppernuts)

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A spice mop is the same as a spice nut but bigger.

Peppernuts are actually those delicious, block-shaped treats but most people call everything peppernuts.

Ingredients:

Dry ingredients:

  • 150 g chufa flour extra fine
  • 50 g arrowroot
  • 50g coconut blossom sugar (they can be made with less sugar but this will make them less crunchy)
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • pinch of fine Himalayan salt or fine Celtic sea salt
  • 2 tablespoons of biscuit spices

Wet ingredients:

  • 100 g (cold) butter, ghee or coconut oil
  • 2 tablespoons milk, coconut milk, horchata or water
  • 1 tablespoon chufa oil, olive oil will also do the trick (this makes it easy to spin small balls and makes them crispier)

Preparation

  1. Add all the dry ingredients together and blend in the food processor.
  2. Add the butter, ghee or coconut oil along with the (coconut) milk and oil and mix again. Not too long, the dough should preferably remain cold.
  3. The spice mops turn out best when you let the dough rest overnight in the fridge.
  4. Make big balls of the dough and flatten them slightly.
  5. Place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake for 25 minutes at 160 degrees.
  6. They only get crunchy later.

Black Pete went out cycling, then his tyre snapped.
Then he had to walk, with the bike attached to his hand.
He came into a village, and said to the blacksmith:
'I believe in my back tyre, there's a tiger nut!

Paleo Gluten-free Stuffed Speculoos (biscuits)

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Those who are sweet get treats!

As soon as summer is over they are already in the shops: kruidnoten, speculaas, taai taai and other sweets that herald the arrival of St Nicholas.

Traditionally, Santa Claus sprinkles goodies and in these modern times, it is nice when these goodies are also deliciously healthy or less unhealthy.

Here is a recipe of stuffed speculaas biscuits to snack responsibly on New Year's Eve!

Ingredients:

Use a portion of nut-free spice made from the chufa.

For the dough:

  • 150 grams Chufa flour Extra Fine
  • 50 g arrowroot
  • 25 g coconut blossom sugar
  • 2 tablespoons of biscuit spices
  • half teaspoon baking soda
  • pinch of fine Himalayan salt or fine Celtic sea salt
  • 80g butter (or coconut oil)
  • 25 g milk of your choice
  • 2 eggs

Topping:

  • For example, shaved almonds if you eat nuts and otherwise, of course, Chufa Topping Natural or Chufa Shavings!

Preparation

Dough:

  1. Mix together the flour, coconut blossom sugar, biscuit spices, baking soda and salt in a food processor.
  2. add the milk of your choice, creamed butter (or coconut oil) and eggs and mix again to form a cohesive dough.
  3. let the dough rest in the fridge for half an hour or overnight. After this, the flavours will have become one delicious whole.

We had made 3 cakes but they turned out really big. We adjusted it to 4 cakes.

Stuffed speculoos:

  1. Of the total 400 grams of dough, use 40 grams for the bottom. Knead a little more and flatten into a round layer about 0.5 cm thick.
  2. Spread the nut-free paste (40 grams per cake) over this first layer of dough but leave the outer half-centimetre of the dough uncovered.
  3. make a 2nd slice of 60g and lay it over the underlayment like a blanket.
  4. press the 2 layers of dough firmly together.
  5. Smear the top with a beaten egg, if necessary.
  6. lightly press the topping into the top of the dough

Almost ready! Just need to bake for 30 minutes at 170 degrees in a preheated oven. Enjoy your meal!

Yammie yammie, stuffed speculaas. Nice and sweet, it's almost St Nicholas!