Speculaas Pâte sablée

I spent quite a great portion of last week accessorizing my kitchen.

One of my most prized possessions are my pestle and mortar. A small, mass produced ceramic version, its not the giant raw marble kind I would ideally have, but it does the job since I only buy my spices whole and raw (they taste a world better).

Ever since my trips to the Netherlands I have been obsessed with the Speculaas spice mixture and have recreated it in cakes, pastry, and meringues. Speculaas combines cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom and white pepper, but I use whatever is at hand for an aromatic constant gratification.

I now mostly use salted butter in pastries. I find that is balances the sweetness, and also acts as an enhancer, resulting in dough, tart bases and meringues with a complex and round flavor, adding another layer of complexity to the overall result as opposed to just being ‘sweet’. Nothing in life is black or white, and similarly neither are flavors sweet or savory. Its all about balance and a dialogue between two extremes.

This spice mixture has proved extremely successful in short crust pastry as a base for a lemon curd tart. The sharp fragrant spices in the pastry are enhanced by the salted butter and bring out the zest in the smooth lemon curd.

Speculaas Pâte sablée

(for a Ø20cm tart case)

For the dough

1 cup flour, sifted

½ cup confectioner’s sugar

Speculaas spice mix (see recipe below)

90 gr cold butter (I use salted), cut into small pieces

1 egg

Speculaas spice mix

4 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp mace

1/3 tsp dry ginger

1/5 tsp white pepper

1/5 tsp cardamom

1/5 tsp coriander seeds

1/5 tsp anise seeds

1/5 tsp nutmeg

Using a pestle & mortar or a coffee grinder, grind the spices together (Its ok if you leave some spices out). Set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor mix the flour, sugar, Speculaas spice mix and butter. Pulse until the texture resembles coarse sand.

Stir in the egg and pulse only until the dough pulls together.

Alternatively, if your food processor is broken (!) you can make the dough using your hands.

In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar and the spices. Sprinkle the butter pieces over the dry ingredients and, using your hands, work quickly to combine the mixture until the texture resembles coarse sand. Add the egg and work only until the dough pulls together. The most important thing is not to fiddle too much with the dough.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

Pat into a ball and flatten into a disk.

Chill the dough, wrapped in plastic, for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

On a lightly floured baking sheet, flatten the disk with a rolling pin. Lift the dough and give it a quarter turn. This prevents the dough from sticking to the surface.

Lightly dust the top of the dough or the rolling pin with flour as needed, then roll out until the dough is about 5mm thick.

Using the paper as aid, flip the dough into a tart pan with removable bottom, then peel off the paper.

Lightly press the pastry into bottom and up sides of pan. Roll your rolling pin over top of pan to get rid of excess pastry and with a thumb up movement, press the dough into pan.

Roll rolling pin over top again to get rid of any extra pastry.

Prick bottom of dough, cover and freeze for about 10 minutes.

Line unbaked pastry shell with parchment paper and fill the tart pan with pie weights or beans (make sure the weights are evenly distributed over the entire surface).

Bake the crust for 10 minutes.

Remove the pie weights and the parchment paper and bake for a further 5 minutes.

The crust should be dry and a light golden brown color.

Allow the crust to cool on a wire rack before filling.

Sweet yeast dough Monkey bread pull- apart muffins

My obsession with sweet yeast baked goods has taken a turn for the best recently. Tracking down a unique recipe is pleasing enough, but when juxtaposed with an original thought it can turn into a magical, and dare I say it, euphoric experience. I’m only saying this because it happened to me last week. Twice.

The first was a Sweet yeast dough Monkey bread pull- apart muffins. A mouthful. The second time was a lemon curd tart I made with a salted butter Speculaas Pâte sablée.

I found out about an American phenomena called ‘monkey bread’. Loosely based on pastry this is a violent recipe involving some cinnamon, but mainly the brutal drowning of industrial frozen biscuit dough chunks into what can only be described as butter. It was the cinnamon that caught my attention.

I would own this monkey bread, I thought. The industrial biscuit was quickly substituted with a sweet yeast dough recipe, making this a high quality muffin version of the cinnamon delight.

The dough is cut into bite size chunks before it is baked, so it has an ergonomic design, what with the bites pulling apart.

Sweet yeast, cinnamon and butter turned toffee pastry that’s user friendly – what more can and should pastry be?!?!

The result is breath taking and mouth watering and left me gob smacked and flabbergasted.

Sweet yeast Monkey bread pull- apart muffins

Makes about 15 muffins

For the dough

500 grams sifted all purpose organic flour

1 ¼ teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoon active dry yeast

320 ml milk

75 grams butter

For the dry sugar cinnamon mixture

2 cup brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

3 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cardamon

For the butter sugar mixture

40 grams cold salted butter, diced

In a large bowl combine all the ingredients. Knead for about 5-8 minutes, either by hand or stand mixer until dough is smooth and elastic.

Cover the dough with a clean dishtowel and leave to rise for approx. 45 minutes at room temperature.

Divide the dough in 15 pieces. Form into little ball shapes, cover and leave for 20 minutes.

In a small bowl mix together the ingredients for the sugar cinnamon mixture.

Grease a muffin pan with butter, dust it with flour and set aside.

Turn out one ball of dough at a time onto lightly floured surface. Press it with your hands until it is about 1 cm thick. Cut the dough into small chunks, about the size of a thumb and roll them in the sugar cinnamon mixture until covered. Set aside. Do the same with all the remaining dough balls.

Add the cold butter into the sugar cinnamon mixture and mix with your hands until combined.

Fill each muffin to the halfway point with dough chunks, softly packing them in. sprinkle about a tablespoon of the sugar mixture, then top with more dough chunks, packing lightly. Finish with more sugar mixture.

Bake at 175°C degrees for about 12-15 minutes but keep an eye on them. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes.

Run a sharp knife around the edges of each muffin then gently scoop out of the muffin tin.

This is when the magic happens and the sugar and butter have turned into oozing, juicy toffee.