speculoos

Most Speculoos versions are made from white flour, brown sugar, butter and spices.

The spread consists of 60% crushed speculoos cookies along with vegetable oils.

Speculoos dough does not rise much.

Spices used in speculoos are cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom and white pepper.

The Belgian city of Hasselt is known for a local variety of speculoos called speculation.

Speculoos: a shortcrust cinnamon cookie.

Kruidnoten (literally, "spice nuts"), are harder, have a different colour and shape and are made using the same ingredients used for making speculoos.

While you're there, don't miss the nearby branch of Dandoy Biscuiterie (rue de Rollebeek 50, www.biscuiteriedandoy.be) for another Belgian speciality: spiced "speculoos" biscuits.

As a form of "spreadable Speculoos cookies," the flavor is caramelized and gingerbread-like with a color similar to peanut butter and a consistency ranging from creamy to granular or crunchy.

Speculoos are thin, very crunchy, slightly browned and, most significantly, have some image or figure (often from the traditional stories about St. Nicholas) stamped on the front side before baking; the back is flat.

In the United States, New Zealand and Australia, speculoos are often sold as Belgian Spice Cookies or Dutch Windmill cookies or Biscoff cookies.

The Feast of St Nicholas on 6 December brings the Bishop of Myra (the original Father Christmas) and his acolytes onto the streets and into shops to give gifts and speculoos biscuits to children.

His seffa dessert, semolina with raisins, almonds, pistachios, dates, crushed speculoos, (thin and spicy crunchy biscuits), sprinkled with orange flower water, was invented by his pastry chef Karim, who will open a pastry shop of his own this summer.

Spreads made from crushed Speculoos cookies would subsequently go into production by three separate companies, and by the time they arrived in Belgian supermarkets, Speculoos spread caused a sensation, taking the "Benelux market by storm."

On January 13, 1870 Antonie Deplée, a baker from Hasselt, acquired a license for Hasselt speculoos: "une espèce de pain d'amandes connu sous le nom de spéculation" (A kind of almond "bread" known under the name spéculation.)

In the area of Europe centered on Eeklo, Belgium, where the speculoos cookie originated, local workers had long known that a sandwich made in the morning with butter and speculoos cookies would develop a spread-like consistency by lunchtime.