Pepernoten

Today it’s 5 December – time for the Dutch ‘Sinterklaas’ celebrations, lots of presents, happy children and of course: PEPERNOTEN! But what to do if you don’t live in Holland and can’t just go to the supermarket for a bag or two (or twenty) of pepernoten? Here’s your answer:

You will need:

• 500 gram wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 150 gram sugar (preferably raw or brown sugar)
• 100 gram honey
• 6 tbsp milk
• 4 tbsp ‘speculaaskruiden’* (see below)
• 160 gram soft butter

*Speculaaskruiden:

In case you are not able to buy speculaaskruiden (a Dutch mixture of spices) where you live, you can prepare it yourself by mixing all below ingredients together and storing in an airtight container.

• 14 tsp ground cinnamon
• 4 tsp ground cloves
• 4 tsp ground mace
• 4 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground white pepper
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground anise seeds or star anise

Recipe:

• Put all ingredients together in a large bowl and mix until you have a an almost smooth dough ball. You can either mix and knead by hand or use a mixer.
• Preheat the oven at 150 °C / 300 °F and grease a baking sheet with a little bit of vegetable oil.
• Form little balls of the dough and place them on the baking sheet with a little bit of space in between them. Normally pepernoten are quite small; however, if you make bigger ones these tend to be a little softer and very tasty as well. I decided to make some of different sizes this time.
• Place the baking sheet in the oven for about 20 minutes. After that, your pepernoten are ready to eat (of course, after letting them cool down a bit).

Enjoy! =)