Travel another way

Today, on our Belgian escapade, we attended a pastry workshop where pastry chef Ivan taught us all the secrets on how to make delicious speculoos.

But first, do you do what a speculoos is?  

The speculoos is a traditional Belgian cookie which was initially eaten for Saint Nicolas. But it became so popular that speculoos started to be baked all year round. You can now have them served with your cup of coffee, but also  as speculoos ice cream. The word speculoos comes from the Latin ‘species’ (spices) because you can add may spices when making them.

To learn how to bake them, we went to the Museum of Bread, in the Harze castle. After a wonderful lunch in the castle, we met Ivan who first demonstrated the basic steps to make a successful dough, and we then started to make our own cookie dough. We used the following ingredients: eggs, water, spices (mainly cinnamon) brown sugar, flour, yeast, baking soda and butter.

Karen and Rima working the dough with the help of Chef Ivan.

From L to R: Jac (our tour guide), Dianna and Mary Anne weighing the dough

It was extremely fun!

Now, do you want to know the secret? Working and pounding the dough with one hand was the secret ! The chef kept reminding us this rule, so that we could use our clean hand to add the ingredients.

After shaping our speculoos, we set them in the oven, and while they were cooking, we had a charming guided tour of the very informative Bread Museum located in a 19th century mill.

One hour later, we each left the Harze castle with a little bag of speculoos. That was a real Belgian experience !

Barb, Rose and Mary Anne tasting their own speculoos.

The group during the visit of the Bread museum

All of us with our speculoos cookies (from L to R: Caryl, Dianna, Mary Anne, Karen, Rima, Barb and Rose).