Speculoos and gingerbreads Best made by yourself

Speculoos and gingerbread: homemade they taste particularly good
What would be the Christmas season without speculoos and gingerbread? The spicy pastry is best made by yourself - and that's not particularly difficult or expensive. The speculoos have a long tradition, especially on the Lower Rhine, in Belgium and in the Netherlands. The biscuits tell in pictures the story of the Bishop of Myra, better known as Saint Nicholas.

Tastes best! (Image: Alexander Raths / fotolia.com)

If you want to prepare the pastry yourself, mix classic roasted hazelnuts, grated lemon zest, butter, sugar, cream and egg yolk to a smooth mass. In addition, there are oriental spices such as cinnamon, cloves, ginger, star anise, cardamom and nutmeg, which are also contained in ready-made speculum spice mixtures. With flour and staghorn salt (serves as a raising agent), the ingredients are processed into a dough, which is cold-set for one hour. Then place the mixture in traditional wooden or silicone molds. Alternatively, the dough can also roll out thinly and cut out with normal Christmas shapes. At 200 degrees, the speculoos are ready in 8 to 10 minutes.

Another Advent classic is gingerbread, which is prepared in many variations. The name probably derives from the Latin word for flatbread (libum). Especially famous is the Nuremberg gingerbread. In Nuremberg many trade routes passed in former times. Thus, the bakers came easily to foreign spices, which were summarized under the term "pepper". That's why the gingerbread is also known as gingerbread. From the monasteries came the idea of ​​painting the dough on wafers, so that he did not stick to the plate.

For a wafer gingerbread, butter, sugar and eggs are mixed until frothy, mixed with baking powder, flour, milk and ground hazelnuts and then refined with cocoa powder and a dash of rum. Finally, add finely chopped raisins and citrons and a gingerbread spice mixture, which usually consists of cinnamon, anise, cloves, cardamom and coriander. The gingerbread mass comes to the wafer and is baked in the oven at 180 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes golden brown. If you like it even sweeter, cover the round thaler with a chocolate glaze. In a well-sealed tin, they are stable until solid. Heike Kreutz, bzfe