Speculaas Cookies Recipe | Dutch Windmill Cookies (2024)

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Speculaas Cookies, also known as Speculoos or Dutch Windmill Cookies are a traditional Dutch cookie. A favorite of many, including myself. I’ve made speculaas cookies numerous times but never mastered the art of baking these cookies in a cookie mold. I set out the to put an old speculaas mold to good use and make my own Dutch windmill cookies.

Mastering The Speculaas Cookie – Dough And Mold

I have to say, it was harder than I thought. For some reason I just couldn’t get the dough to come out of the mold and when I did manage to get them out of the mold the cookies would spread too much and lose too much of their details for me to consider them proper speculaas cookies. I tried everything, used different types and mixes of sugar, used honey, but nothing worked. Or, in all honesty, using part honey did work but I really didn’t like the taste of it, it didn’t taste like a proper speculaas cookie.

After many, and I mean MANY attempts I finally figured out the secret to getting the cookies out of the mold easily. It’s rice flour! Sprinkle some rice flour on your mold before putting the dough in and they should come out relatively easily. I also came up with a recipe for the dough that worked for me to keep as much detail as possible to the cookies without losing the flavor of the cookie. I’m excited to share the recipe with you, I hope it works just as good for you as it does for me.

How To Make Speculaas Cookies

To make the speculaas cookies you’ll need speculaas spice mix. You can make it yourself by following the recipe for speculaas spice on the website. Alternatively, you can substitute with pumpkin pie spice, which is a similar blend of spices.

For the speculaas cookies you’ll need flour, butter, milk, dark brown sugar, salt, baking powder and speculaas spice.(The full list of ingredients including measurements can be found in the recipe card below.)

Put the flour and baking powder on your work surface or in a bowl and make a little well in the middle.

In the middle of the well, add the remaining ingredients, salt, dark brown sugar, speculaas spice mix, butter and milk.

Using your hands combine all ingredients.

And knead it into a dough. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

When the dough is ready you can roll out the dough on a floured work surface and use a cookie cutter to cut out the cookies. Or, if you have a speculaas cookie mold, you can take your mold and dust it with rice flour.

Press the speculaas dough into the mold. Make sure you firmly press it to ensure all the details will be copied to the cookie.

Trim off the edges.

Take a piece of sewing thread or other thin piece of string, I used a piece of fishing wire, and use it to scrape off the excess dough. Make sure you have the string running tightly against the wood, underneath the excess dough on top.

Roll off the excess dough. You’ll be left with a cookie mold that’s filled with cookie dough.

Turn the mold over and give it one, or more firm taps to let the cookies fall out of the mold. It took me a few times to get this to work, but practice makes perfect, and using the rice flour helps a lot.

You’ll end up with cookies like this. If needed you can use a soft brush to brush off some of the rice flour. Put the cookie on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake for about 15 minutes.

If all goes well they will look a little like this. Don’t they look cute??

The windmill is my favorite one 🙂

Speculaas Cookies

Speculaas Cookies, also known as Speculoos or Dutch Windmill Cookies are a traditional Dutch cookie. Make the cookies with a speculaas mold or cookie cutter

Votes: 46
Rating: 4.15
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Type

Cuisine

Dutch

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

15 minutes

Passive Time

30 minutes

Servings

Ingredients

Speculaas Dough

2 cups all-purpose flour 250 g
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp Speculaas Spice Mix
pinch of salt
3/4 cup dark brown sugar 150 g
2/3 cup butter 150 g
3 tbsp milk lukewarm

Tools for using a speculaas mold

speculaas mold
rice flour
piece of sewing thread

22 comments

Luc
29 January 2023
I have read your recipe with great interest, as an amateur collector of speculaas molds and baker of speculaas I had some comments. It is better to let the dough rest for at least 24 hours, especially if you want to make large figures. Using rice flour is ok but rice semolina is even better, you fill the figures with rice semolina, turn the mold over and tap it with a rolling pin, there will be a very thin layer that prevents the dough from sticking. You also have no flour traces on the speculaas. You can reuse the rice semolina as long as it contains enough fine ingredients. I also use much less butter in proportion, almost 1/2 less, but that is of course specific to the recipe. Experience has shown that making large figures with a lot of butter is very difficult, and my specialty is baking large figures. You can find my molds and baking on Pinterest
Reply
Hendrik Huyser
14 December 2021
A postscript, Rachel:
I DID make my own speculaaskruiden (speculaas spice) mix after much research from other Dutch-American and Dutch language sites, analyzing the ratios and kinds of spices combined. Then, on excel spreadsheet, I converted what I had to convert for uniform measure and used multipliers to come up with a jar of the mix (rather than a few teaspoons)…
So, I got THAT far into this process. I just need to know how to handle that cookie mold!
Dank u…
Henk
Reply
Hendrik Huyser
14 December 2021
Hallo Rachel:
Ik ben een Amerikaan ven geboorte, maar van Nederlandse (Rotterdam) ouders, dus hier op van nu aan, tekst ik hier in engels, oké? In English, I am an American by birth, but from Dutch (Rotterdam) parents, therefore from now on I will text here in English, okay?
I finally found, a year to a year and a half ago, two speculaas molds. I tried using them, but was very frustrated witht he fragile outcome of the dough from the molds. Yes, they’re floured up. Even if they “pop out” from bagning the mold on the table so hard (I afraid of breaking either the table or the mold), I can’t pick then up to transfer to the cookie sheet…EVEN WITH A FISH SPATULA! How can i make this easier and “funner” to do? I found myself using just a round cookie cutter. But, of course, that is not the authentic windmill look or shape for thse who want to “ooh and aah” at the cookies when presented. So, how to do that please without the aggravation and feeling of defeat?
Dankuwel in voorraad voor het antwoord (Thank you in adavnce for the answer)
Henk…
Reply
1. Rachel (Cakies)
  15 December 2021
  Hi Henk,
  I understand your frustration completely. It took me many times as well before I figured out what works for me as well. For me the game changer was using rice flour to dust the cookie molds with. Since I’ve been using this I’ve had no trouble getting the dough out. Another tip I got from a baker was to make the dough a few days in advance, he said that that would help the dough get out easier as well. He never dusts his molds but he also uses his molds often so they’re ‘worked in’.
  Reply
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  1. Hendrik (Henk) Huyser
    24 December 2021
    Dankuwel, Rachel…
    I will try the rice flour…
    BTW, the speculaasbrokken recipe is great!!! Found that one, too!
    (Anyone who might read this, here’s that recipe from Rachel):
    https://cakieshq.com/recipe/dutch-speculaasbrokken/
    Reply
    1. Rachel (Cakies)
      27 December 2021
      Hi Henk, thanks for letting me know you enjoyed the Speculaasbrokken recipe. I hope the rice flour works for you as well!
      Reply
Maria McCallum
1 December 2020
cant wait to try these!
Maria
Reply
Mary Lou Hefling
5 November 2020
I have trouble keeping the design. It spreads and looses the detail. I tried everything and even called some Dutch bakeries in Holland. Mich and Pella, Iowa. Finally. I saw Martha Stewart’s recipe. She gets them out of the molds, puts them on a cookie sheet and freezes them for 30 min., then bakes. Works great…if you have that kind of room in your freezer. I have very limited freezer space.
Reply
1. Rachel (Cakies)
  6 November 2020
  Keeping the design is always hard with these cookies. That’s the reason why I like to chill my dough in the fridge. When I do that I notice that the detail still fades a bit but it’s very similar to the cookies I buy at the store, they don’t have a super crisp design either.
  You can indeed also put them in the freezer for a bit, but like you, I don’t always have the space for that. You can also use honey instead of sugar but I find the taste just isn’t like a proper Speculaas cookie should be.
  Reply
2. Rafiq
  8 April 2021
  You need ‘weak’ flour with low ash and low protein. Weath grown in cold rainy climates like Holland are less quality than durum , hard weaths . Not good for bread but ideal for cookies . All Purpose can be used but not ideal. You need Pastry flower, AKA 404 or 45 or 00 or ‘Zeeuwsed Bloem” is the one you need.
  Reply
Anonymous
6 July 2020
I have read that, in order for the cookies to keep their details, the baking sheet should be put into the fridge for a while, so that the dough is really cold before it is put into the oven. Did you try this?
Reply
1. Rachel (Cakies)
  6 July 2020
  I always chill my dough at least 30 minutes before rolling for that same reason. I’ve also put the baking sheet in the fridge as well before baking which helps a bit with keeping the shape. I usually do that when it’s really warm and the dough is getting soft quickly. I chill them again if needed.
  Reply
Kathy
5 December 2019
Where can you buy the cookie mold ?
Reply
1. Rachel (Cakies)
  6 December 2019
  I found mine on a Dutch flea market. You can try and check Amazon for cookie molds https://www.amazon.com/s?k=speculaas+mold&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
  Reply
2. Monique
  23 December 2019
  weekendbakery.com is where I bought mine.
  Reply
Jess
4 December 2018
Absolutely beautiful! I made these tonight and they taste exactly like the speculaas I’ve had before. Thank you for posting this recipe up! 🙂
Reply
1. Rachel (Cakies)
  7 December 2018
  You’re welcome 🙂 I’m happy to hear the recipe worked out for you 😀
  Reply
  1. Giselle
    13 July 2019
    Hi! Do you know how many cookies approximately come out with this amount of ingredients? Thanks! ?
    Reply
Charl
12 November 2018
Use confectioner’s sugar to stop cookies from sticking to the mold in stead of the rice flour.
Reply
1. Rachel (Cakies)
  14 November 2018
  Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, confectioners’ sugar didn’t work for me, but if it works for you, you should definitely continue using it 🙂
  Reply
2. Giselle
  13 July 2019
  Sorry, I read again and found out that the answer is 40 ?
  Reply
  1. Rachel (Cakies)
    13 July 2019
    Glad to hear that you found the answer ?
    Reply