How to make pepernoten

Pepernoten (spice nuts) are a special dutch Sinterklaas treat. They are very small round cookies. They are not really difficult to make, but I still managed to burn my first batch today. The recipe is enough for 3 baking sheets full of these, so I still had two batches that turned out nicely.The recipe uses speculaas spices, which you can buy in dutch supermarkets but probably not anywhere else. Click here to see how you can make it yourself.



Ingrediënts
250 g self raising flour
125 g brown sugar
6 tsp speculaas spices
150 g butter
2 tbsp milk

How to make it
Preheat the oven at 160 degrees C. Put the flour, sugar, speculaas spices and the butter in a bowl and mix it until a dough starts to form. Then slowly add the milk and knead it through the dough. Put a sheet of baking paper on the baking sheet. Make small rolls of the dough, put them on the baking paper and flatten them a little. Bake them for about 10-15 minutes. Check from time to time to see if they already have a nice golden brown color.

Enjoy!

Sinterklaas

Today it's 5 december and in the Netherlands it's St. Nichola's eve. It's the evening where Sinterklaas brings everyone presents. It's a bit like Santa Claus. There are special songs and treats for Sinterklaas.
Sinterklaas usually arrives midway november on his steamship from Spain along with his helpers, the Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes). From the day Sinterklaas arrives up until 4 december children can in the evenings put hay or a carrot in their shoe for Sinterklaas's horse and during the night the Zwarte Pieten will replace it with candy or a small present. They also sing songs when they have put something in their shoe. Pepernoten (spice nuts) are very small round treats that are handed out by Zwarte Pieten. I will post a recipe of how to make them. Furthermore lots of people receive a chocolate letter, which is usually the first letter of their name.

As a kid Sinterklaas was my favorite holiday and it was always an exciting time.

Here are some Sinterklaas songs to get in the right mood!