Belgium Cookie Recipes

EMPIRE COOKIES

Steps:

• Cream butter. Add sugar, creaming well. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder; gradually add to creamed mixture.
• On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into 2 inch rounds, and place on ungreased baking sheets.
• Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 10 minutes, or until very lightly browned at edges. Cool thoroughly.
• Spread half of the cookies with jam, and top with remaining cookies.
• Combine confectioners' sugar, almond extract, and enough hot water to make a thin icing. Frost tops of cookies. Top each with a small piece of candied cherry.

BELGIAN IRON COOKIES

Steps:

• Cream butter and brown sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, salt, and liquor (if desired). Blend in.
• Now it gets to be fun. You have to work in all five pounds of flour little by little by hand. It will work in but it takes a while. You'll wind up with a BIG mixing bowl of dough.
• Refrigerate dough overnight.
• Have plenty of people to help with the cooking. Lightly grease and heat the empty cookie iron over a gas burner. Start with a tablespoon and a half of dough rolled into a little "cigar" shape and vary amount to fit the size of your cookie iron. It takes from one to one and a half minutes to cook each cookie - it's a trial and error process at first till you get a handle on the temperature of the gas burner and the heat retaining capabilities of your iron. A properly cooked cookie will be golden and after cooled, crisp.
• This a family holiday tradition for us and we spend a whole day cooking cookies with lots of testing to make sure they're as good as last year's. The cast iron cookie irons work best, but I have seen people make them with the aluminum pizelle "irons". Ask for a krumkokie (croom cockie) iron at a gourmet cooking shop. We put them in tins and store till next Christmas, eating last year's cookies.

BELGIAN LUKKEN WAFFLE COOKIES

Steps:

• Combine ingredients together in a large bowl to form a dough.
• Roll into balls and place into the Lukken iron (Lukijyer) or Pizzelle iron until golden brown.

SPECULOOS

Steps:

• With a spatula, mix the butter with sugar, salt and spices. Add the eggs one by one and mix well.
• Gradually add the flour mixed with the baking powder until obtaining a homogeneous dough.
• Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 12 hours.
• Preheat oven to 375 F / 190 C.
• Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces.
• Thoroughly dust the work surface with flour and the rolling pin. Roll the first piece dough to a thickness of ¼ inch (5 mm)
• Cut the dough with a knife or a cookie cutter and use the wooden or silicone mold to make some prints on the speculoos.
• Place the speculoos on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 10 minutes.
• Renew the operation until all the dough is used.
• When they are out of the oven, wait a few minutes before placing the speculoos on a rack and let them cool completely before storing them in a tin box.

BELGIAN CHRISTMAS COOKIES

Steps:

• Cream butter with extract; add brown sugar gradually, creaming until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
• Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together; add in thirds to creamed mixture, mixing until blended after each addition. Turn into a greased 15 x 10 x 1 inch jelly roll pan and spread evenly to edges.
• Sprinkle a mixture of almonds and cinnamon over batter, then sprinkle with a mixture of red and green sugar.
• Bake at 375°F 10 to 12 minutes.
• Cut into bars while still warm. About 5 dozen cookies.
• Canadian Family Cookbook.

HOW TO MAKE AUTHENTIC SPECULOOS COOKIES

Steps:

• In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar together.
• Add one egg at a time, mixing about 30 to 60 seconds after each one.
• In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and spices. Then add about 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture. Mix lightly until incorporated. Repeat in 2 steps for the next 2/3 of the flour mixture.
• Make a ball with the dough. Knead gently on a floured cutting board only to make sure all ingredients are mixed well together. If the dough sticks to your hands or the cutting board, add a little more flour until it's no longer sticky. Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and put in refrigerator. Leave at least 30 minutes. I usually leave it overnight. It can stay in the refrigerator 24 hours without any problems.
• Remove the dough from the refrigerator about 15 minutes before rolling. Preheat oven to 350°F / 175°C (see notes below). Cut dough in three parts. Flatten the first part. Roll it out on a floured cutting board until the dough is about 1/12 inch / 2 millimeters thick. A little thicker is ok too. Be careful not to roll the dough too thin or else the cookies will break or burn. Gather the remaining dough and roll it out again to create new shapes.
• Use your cookie cutters to create shapes. Place the cut-out shapes of dough onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Put the filled baking sheet into the oven (on the middle rack). Let bake until the cookies are lightly brown on top (about 15 minutes). Remove cookies from oven and let them cool on a rack.
• While you bake each pan of cookies, continue rolling out the rest of the dough. You will thus roll-out and bake simultaneously. Therefore the time indicated for rolling out and baking will overlap to a large extent.
• After all the cookies are baked and cooled off, enjoy! If you create shapes the size of my cookies in the photo, you will make about 45 cookies per egg. Share with friends!

BELGIAN SPICE COOKIES (SPECULOOS)

Steps:

• Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
• Add turbinado sugar to food processor fitted with steel blade. Process for 30 seconds to break down sugar crystals. (See Tip 4)
• Add the chilled butter to the food processor. Process until butter is incorporated with the sugar, about 30 seconds. Add the egg. Process until incorporated, about 10 seconds.
• Add the dry ingredients to the sugar/butter mixture in the food processor. Process until flour is well incorporated, about 30 seconds.
• Transfer cookie dough to gallon Ziploc bag. Leaving the top open, roll the dough into an even layer that fills the bag. As you roll, turn the bag occasionally and lift the plastic from the dough so that it doesn't cause creases. Seal the bag, and place in freezer for at least 30 minutes. See (Tips 5 and 6)
• Preheat oven to 300°F
• Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats. Put the ziploc bag on a cutting board and slit it open. Turn the firm dough onto a parchment lined board or counter; discard the bag. Trim the four sides of the dough with a fluted pastry wheel cutter. Using a ruler as a guide and a fluted pastry cutter wheel, cut the dough into 32 1-1/4 inch rectangles. (See Tip 7)
• Bake at 300°F for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on baking sheet for 20 minutes.
• Yield: 32 Belgian Spice Cookies. (See Tip 8)

BELGI GALETTES (FRENCH COOKIES)

Steps:

• Cream room temp. Butter with sugars, add eggs one at a time,add flour and mix until blended well. Refrigerate overnight. Drop onto cookie iron and cook about 30 sec. remove with fork to a flat surface to cool.

BELGIAN SPICE COOKIES

Steps:

• Combine first 6 ingredients in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat brown sugar and butter in large bowl until light. Add egg and beat until fluffy. Gradually add dry ingredients and beat just until combined. Divide dough in half. Flatten each half into rectangle. Wrap with plastic; chill 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly butter 2 large baking sheets. Roll out 1 dough piece on lightly floured work surface to 13 x 9-inch rectangle. Trim edges to form 12x8-inch rectangle. Cut into 24 4x1-inch rectangles. Lightly press miniature cookie cutter into each rectangle to make imprints (do not cut through dough). Arrange cookies on prepared baking sheets, spacing 1 inch apart. Bake until edges begin to darken, about 8 minutes. Transfer cookies to rack and cool. Repeat with remaining dough piece.
• Working with 1 cookie at a time, brush imprints with melted white chocolate. Sprinkle colored sugar generously over chocolate. Let stand until chocolate sets, about 2 hours. Shake off excess colored sugar. (Can be made ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week, or freeze up to 1 month.)