Sinterklaas: Taaitaai

Today I have another Sinterklaas recipe for you. This typical Dutch treat is called Taaitaai. It is called that way because taai is the Dutch word for chewy and these cookies need to rest for a couple of days at least to get their typical structure and flavour. If I am totally honest, I never liked store bought Taaitaai much. But Nick does and when I had a Sinterklaas cookbook from the library, Nick requested we make those. I am really glad we did because homemade taaitaai is really delicious. Classic taaitaai is in a different shape, but we just rolled balls of the dough and this worked really well.

Taaitaai: (serves a few hungry people)
- 215 gr flour
- 215 gr rye or spelt flour
- 10 gr baking powder
- 4 tbsp ground anise seeds
- 140 gr honey
- 200 gr light brown castor sugar
- 1 egg
- 0.25 tsp salt

Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees. Sift both flours, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add the anise seeds. Mix the honey and the sugar with 100 ml water in a pan and bring to a boil on low heat. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry, but be careful, it is very hot at this point.

Leave the mixture to cool a bit and then knead it till you have a dough. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Tear pieces from the dough and roll them into little balls, Place them on the tray. Beat the egg and smear some egg wash on all cookies. Bake them for about 12 minutes.

Keep the taaitaai in an air tight container with a piece of bread for 4 days. Then remove the bread. Keep them for at least a week in the container but it can be up to a month. How longer you save them, the better they will taste. But if you have no time, they are already very tasty after 4 days,

Pin It

Tweet