Sunday - Breakfast - Sinterklaas Edition

Yesterday Roberto and I celebrated Sinterklaas, which is to be celebrated this evening actually, but since we won't be together this evening and he will be 200 km away, we did it yesterday.
We had lots of fun in the afternoon baking Pepernoten and Taai taai. Those are two Sinterklaas treats. Since we live in Italy and it would be a miracle to find them in the store, we baked them.
It was an adventure because, they had to be like I have always had them, since I was a child. I am an expert ^^.
We spent wonderful moments together (I will post some photos in another post) and had much fun.



This morning we woke up hearing my neighbours quarelling as every day (it's getting annoying after two years), but we had a smile on our faces. There were some Pepernoten left so we ate some of them. I made fruit tea and a banana shake. Yesterday morning Roberto had surprised me with chocolate because it is a tradition having a chocolate letter (the initial of your name) for Sinterklaas, and I was a bit sad, because I love traditions, and I want to hold them tight. Obviously we hadn't got a chocolate letter, so he bought some chocolate for me. And he ate the last bit this morning =).

If you want to try this traditional Dutch recipe here you have the recipe of Pepernoten. If you like Gingerbread and spicy cookies I warmly suggest you to try them out. They're so yummy!


Pepernoten.

250 g (8,8 oz) flour
125 g (4,4 oz) brown sugar
100 g (3,5 oz) unsalted butter, softened
2 TBS Speculaas spices (*see ingredients below)
3 TBS milk
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
salt


Preheat the oven at 150 °C (300 F).
Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, salt)
Add softened butter (I used molted butter) and milk.
Knead until a soft ball is formed (it's quite a thick dough)
Form small balls and place them on parchment paper, press a little.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Allow to cool afterwards (unlike other cookies they're much better if tasted cold).
Oh, and try them with a glass of cold milk! =)

Speculaas spices
I went to a herbalist's shop for these, with my father. I suggest you to do the same because it's cheaper, it's better and you will remember the nice smell of the shop.

30 g (1,05 oz) cinnamon
10 g (0,35 oz) cloves
10 g (o,35 oz) nutmeg
5 g (0,17 oz) white pepper
5 g (o,17 oz) aniseed
5 g (0,17oz) coriander seeds

Mix all the spices together in a jar and close. You cak keep these spices for a long while.


I can tell we had the best weekend. It was so cold outside but we managed to do so many nice things.
In 4 days I'll be 21, I am thinking of making a "21 before 22 list" and I am pondering if starting a 365 project this year (tha last one is almost sure)