Christmas markets. Lots selling Christmas trees. Punsch. Mulled wine. Bakery windows filled with Christmas cookies. All signs sprinkled throughout December of the coming Christmas holiday. Another -- this time at the beginning of September -- is when the supermarkets begin to sell and promote boxes of Lebkuchen and bags of crunchy Spekulatius cookies. Though an important and inseparable part of Christmas in the German-speaking world and in particular in northwest Germany, it would be wrong for the Germans to lay claim to the cookie, for it is more likely Belgian and Dutch in origin. Whereas in Austria, Spekulatius are tied to the Christmas holiday season in general, in Belgium and the Netherlands, it is particularly associated with St. Nicholas' Day, with the cookie's designs telling the story of the festival.
Indeed, the Spekulatius' distinguishing feature is its embossing, achieved by way of a Spekulatius form, which is essentially a block of wood into which cookie-shaped forms are carved and etched with the Spekulatius' various designs. This makes imprints into which the Spekulatius dough can be forced. The challenge thereafter is getting the Spekulatius out of the form in one piece. Another tool used to make Spekulatius, a less fussy and complicated one to be sure, is a roll or wheel. It looks like a paint roller, I suppose, a kind of cookie cutter on wheels which you push or drag across rolled-out Spekulatius dough. Whichever way you make it, the finished Germanic Spekulatius should be hard and quite compact together, very crunchy, seasoned with flavours like cardamom, clove, and cinnamon, though lacking the distinct caramelised flavour and sugary, grainy texture of its Dutch and Belgian equivalents.
