These speculoos doughnuts are made from an extremely fluffy brioche dough, stuffed with a luscious speculoos cream. Everything is covered with a speculoos spice sugar. A delicious mouthwatering treat!

What is Speculoos?

Speculoos, or also known as biscoff, are these spiced dark biscuits popular in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. Originally made for St. Nicholas day and during Christmas days. Nowadays, they are also popularly served with tea and coffee in coffee shops. These biscuits are spiced with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom and white pepper. From these biscuits a spread version is also available, which is extremely delicious!

How to make the Speculoos spice

Speculoos spice is a blend of different spices that creates the unique taste of these traditional biscuits. I buy ready made speculoos mix, as it’s very popular here. However, if you can’t find it ready made, I use the below blend to make it:

5 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground aniseed
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp ground coriander seed
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground mace

What is the windowpane test?

For a perfect fluffy doughnut, you need to make sure that the dough has passed the windowpane test. To carry out the windowpane test, take a small amount of dough and hold it with both hands (using the thumbs and first two fingers). Gently, spread open your hands so to stretch the dough. Keep stretching gently until the centre part of the dough is translucent. If the dough doesn’t break that means that the gluten has developed and you can prepare your dough for the rising part. However, if the dough breaks easily when you open your fingers, the gluten hasn’t yet fully developed. Therefore, transfer the dough ball back to the main dough and let it knead for more minutes. Try again until the dough passes the windowpane test.

FAQs
How to store these doughnuts?

Ideally these doughnuts are eaten the same day that they are fried and filled. However, you can store unfilled doughnuts in an airtight container for not more than 2 days. I like to slightly warm them up before serving if they are day old leftovers. Fill them up when ready to serve. If you have any leftover of already filled doughnuts, store them in airtight container in the fridge for not more than a day.

Ingredients

For the doughnuts:

400 g strong bread flour
170 ml milk lukewarm
45 g sugar
10 g active dry yeast
2 eggs
45 g cubed butter at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt

Speculoos Cream

250 ml heavy cream
3 tbps speculoos spread

Speculoos Spice Sugar

100 g sugar
1/2 tbsp speculoos spice

Instructions

For the Speculoos Cream

Place the heavy cream and speculoos spread into a bowl. With an electric whisk or in a stand mixer whip the mixture to stiff peaks. Transfer to a piping bag with your favourite nozzle and place in the fridge until ready to use.

For the Speculoos Spice Sugar

In a large bowl, mix the sugar and the speculoos spice. Set aside until needed.

For the Doughnuts

In a mixer bowl, activate the yeast by adding the yeast, milk and sugar. Let rest for 5 minutes until foamy.
To the yeast mixture, add the eggs, flour and salt. With a hook attachment, knead the dough for about 3 minutes, until a soft dough starts taking shape.
Gently add the cubed butter one piece at a time until all the butter is incorporated. Let the dough knead fora bout 10 minutes. Make sure it passes the windowpane test.*
Place the dough in a bowl, cover and put it in a warm place until it doubles in size, for about 1 hour. Prepare a baking tray with small parchment paper squares. Set aside.
Once the dough is doubled in size, transfer it to a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough into 9 equal pieces.
Take one piece of dough and shape it into a ball. Place the dough onto the prepared baking tray and repeat with the remaining dough. Leave some space between each doughnut. Once ready, cover the baking tray and let them rest for 30 minutes.
Fill a large pot with vegetable oil. Pour enough oil so that the doughnuts have enough space to cook. Heat the oil to about 170°C/340°F.
Gently add the doughnuts to the hot oil and let them cook for about 3 minutes on each side, until both sides have a nice golden colour. Transfer the cooked doughnuts to a plate lined with paper towels so that it will dry out any excess oil. Fry in batches if necessary.
While still hot, transfer the doughnut to the flavoured sugar plate and cover the doughnut completely. Let the doughnuts cool completely.
Once cooled, make a small slit with a knife on the side of the doughnut and fill generously with the speculoos cream. Add a piece of speculoos biscuit or crumbs!

Notes

*To carry out the windowpane test, take a small amount of dough and hold it with both hands (using the thumbs and first two fingers). Gently, spread open your hands so to stretch the dough. Keep stretching gently until the centre part of the dough is translucent. If the dough doesn’t break that means that the gluten has developed and you can prepare your dough for the rising part. However, if the dough breaks easily when you open your fingers, the gluten hasn’t yet fully developed so it needs more work. Therefore, transfer the dough ball back to the main dough and let it knead for more minutes. Try again until the dough passes the windowpane test.

If you have any questions, feedback or comments on this recipe, please leave a comment below. Please also rate this recipe by double clicking on the stars below. If you did make this recipe, tag @apronandwhisk and hashtag #apronandwhisk, as I’m curious to see what you create!

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Speculoos Doughnuts

What is Speculoos?

How to make the Speculoos spice