For St. Nicholas Day I prepared two Dutch desserts, these Pepernoot and Krestkrans. Pepernoot are spiced biscuits and their name comes from, as you can imagine, pepper-nuts. I liked them a lot, although they might be a little hard.
It’s the first time I use black pepper in a dessert and I loved it so much that I put pepper in the mince pies I baked yesterday. I will share that recipe too. most likely next week.

UPDATE: After reading a comment on my blog, thank you Nicolet, I saw that these are called Kruidnoten. There is a confusion regarding the name and it happens to get these mistaken with Pepernoot. These biscuits are made for St. Nicholas Day too.

Ingredients for 22 small biscuits:
– 125g self-raising flour
– 75g butter at room temperature
– 70g demerara sugar
– 1 tsp spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and black pepper)
– 2 tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to 160C or 140C fan.

Make the dough by hand by rubbing the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and the spices and start kneading the dough. Add a teaspoon of milk and knead lightly, just to incorporate all the ingredients. If you feel the dough is too dense, add the other teaspoon of milk. The dough should be smooth, but not sticky. Make the dough into a log and cut equal pieces. Make small balls and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 15 minutes until the biscuits are browned. Take them out of the oven and leave them to cool in the tray for a couple of minutes. Then transfer them onto a cooling rack and leave them to cool completely.

The Pepernoot biscuits can be eaten like this or they can be coated in chocolate or glazed with icing.

If you want to keep the biscuits for a few days, make sure they are kept in a sealed container. The air will make the biscuits dry-out as it happens with all biscuits and they will become a little harder.

Did you taste Pepernoot biscuits before? Is it something you might like?