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St Nicholas Day and speculaas
The Dutch and Belgian gift day, with speculaas biscuits spiced with cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger, white pepper and cardamom.
Spices for St Nicholas Day and speculaas
On 5 and 6 December, children get gifts from Sinterklaas and bags of pepernoten and speculaas, shortcrust biscuits pressed in wooden moulds and flavoured with a blend of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger, white pepper and cardamom. The blend recalls Amsterdam's trade in the Dutch East India Company era, when it controlled much of the world's clove, nutmeg and cinnamon. Dutch bakers still sell speculaaskruiden, a ready-made mix.
The spices
Also part of it, and being written: Speculaas (The spiced biscuit and the blend.).
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Speculaas" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Clove: Bayu Nugroho, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Nutmeg: Herusutimbul, CC BY-SA 4.0, source