Biscoff Cupcakes (Speculoos)

This speculoos cupcakes recipe is to celebrate the recent arrival of Biscoff style speculoos spread in UK shops!

Speculoos spread, once only sold in Europe is now available at Waitrose. Speculoos biscuits are spicy golden biscuits sold as Lotus biscuits in the UK. You may be familiar with them as the little oval biscuits in cellophane packs served with coffee.

Speculoos spread is a similar consistency to smooth peanut butter or Nutella – but with the added benefit for those with nut allergies of not containing nuts. In common with Nutella, fans of speculoos spread wax lyrical about eating it direct from the jar on a spoon.

To flavour the cupcake sponges I have used here koekkruidden, a Dutch spice mix that lends itself beautifully to baking, especially for a speculoos flavour. The Steenberg’s version of the blend is made up of ground cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom and aniseed.

If you cannot get hold of koekkruiden then use this list as a guide to blend your own mix. And if the staff in Waitrose don’t know what Speculoos spread is, try asking for ‘Lotus spread’ or ‘Lotus caramelised biscuit spread’. Take care however googling images of ‘lotus spread’ as I ended up discovering a rather racy minx with lacy knickers sprawled over the bonnet of a sports car (!)

Print Recipe

5 from 2 votes

Biscoff Cupcakes (Speculoos)

You will need 12 hole bun tins lined with paper cases

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Total Time40 minutes mins

Servings: 12 standard size cupcakes

Author: Sarah Trivuncic

Ingredients

• 125 g butter softened
• 125 g caster sugar (superfine baking sugar)
• 2 large eggs lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp koekkruidden spice powder available from Steenbergs
• 125 g self-raising flour sifted
• 2 tbsp milk
• 4-6 speculoos or Lotus biscuits sliced into shards/chunks.

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 180c/ Gas 4.
• Using an electric mixer with a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Next beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
• Fold in the flour a third at a time until just combined. Fold in the milk taking care not to over mix.
• Evenly spoon the batter into cases, two thirds full.
• Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes or until a cocktail stick will come out clean.
• Leave the cakes in the tins for a few minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
• Decorate using my speculoos buttercream recipe and shards of speculoos biscuits.

Clarification: This is not a sponsored or a review post. I bought my own speculoos spread on holiday in France.

You’ll be needing the recipe for my Biscoff Speculoos Buttercream, here is the link here…

Biscoff Buttercream (Speculoos)