Sweet Sunday – Dutch Kruidnoten

Sweet Sunday is holiday themed this time!

Next week, on the 5th of December, the Dutch celebrate a holiday called Sinterklaas. Some of you may be familiar with it, as it has been on the news quite a bit lately…

Anyways, let’s not dive into that right now. Sinterklaas is basically the Dutch version of Santa Claus, as you might’ve guessed by the strong resemblance in the names. He was actually one of the inspirations for Santa!

So just like at Christmas with Santa, we get an awful lot of presents on Pakjesavond, as we call December 5. Ofcourse, this is already pretty awesome, as you just give each other gifts for no reason whatsoever. But, what makes the whole evening (and the months leading up to it) is the food.

Traditionally, speculaas is eaten during this holiday. It is made with flour, brown sugar, and mixed spice, and does not rise as much as other cookies. The small version of speculaas is something called kruidnoten. These are small, round cookies that have about the same ingredients as speculaas, but somehow taste quite different – better if I may say so. The taste kind of resembles gingerbread, although the ginger flavour is less strong, and no honey is used.

As you might be able to see in the photo, the dough is quite sticky, and not so much fluffy. It is wise to dust your working space, to avoid it sticking to the surface.

Honestly, it does not take that much time to make kruidnoten. The only step that is quite labour intensive is to roll all the small pieces of dough into balls. So, if you happen to have children, I definitely suggest to have them help 😉 Besides, the work is so worth it though, cause you’ve got about 100 of these delicious cookies, YUM.In line with some of the previous Sweet Sunday recipes, like the ontbijtkoek, I wanted to share another true Dutch recipe with you for kruidnoten!

Let me know what you think!

Kruidnoten

Servings: 100 kruidnoten
Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: easy
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Gives ca 100 kruidnoten

10 min preparation + 15 min baking + 30 min waiting

Ingredients

200 grams of self raising flour
100 grams of dark brown caster sugar
1 tbsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp of salt
100 grams of cold butter
3 tbsp milk
Extra flour for dusting

Used kitchen appliances

Mixing bowl
Oven

Preparation

Sieve the flour, sugar, mixed spice, and salt over the mixing bowl.
Dice the butter, and add it along with the milk to the bowl.
Rub everything together using your fingers. Form a ball from the dough, wrap it in cling foil, and store in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
Pre-heat the oven to 175C or 350F. Line a baking tray with foil.
Divide the dough in 5 pieces. Roll each piece out to long sausage-shaped pieces of about 1 cm thick. Cut in smaller pieces of about 2 cm, and roll into a ball.
Place the balls on the baking tray, and lightly flatten with your thumb.
Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until cooked through.
Take out of the oven and let the kruidnoten cool down. Store in an airtight container.