Speculoos spread

Spiced Speculoos cream by Scyavuru from Sicily

The Speculoos cream from Scyavuru is a sweet spread made with Speculoos cookies, produced in Ribera on the southern coast of Sicily. Smooth and warmly spiced, it brings the flavor of the spiced cookie to your breakfast bread, and it glows a bright caramel color in the jar.

Speculoos cream by Scyavuru is a sweet spread made with Speculoos from the Sicilian town of Ribera, known on the label as Crema al Biscotto Speculoos. Waiting in a 200-gram jar to be spread on your breakfast toast, it tastes just like the spiced cookie that most of us associate with the start of the Advent season. It has its place on the breakfast table during the cold months, when it is still dark in the morning and a sweet piece of bread makes the start of the day easier.

Warmly spiced and easy to spread

When you open the jar, the scent of Speculoos immediately fills the kitchen, sweet with caramelized sugar and warm with winter spices.

On bread, the cream is soft and easy to spread, ground so finely that not a single crumb can be found in it. The color lies somewhere between light caramel and a sandy tone. The cookie provides the spice and the milk powder provides a rounded creaminess, which together result in a sweetness with the warmth of freshly baked pastries.

Sugar and fat naturally keep the cream shelf-stable, which is why it can be kept in the cupboard at room temperature. If some oil separates at the top of the jar, this is the natural separation mentioned explicitly on the label, and a quick stir will return it to its smooth consistency.

For breakfast bread, desserts, and ice cream

The Crema al Biscotto Speculoos is traditionally used on breakfast bread, croissants, toast, or brioche. Sweet, spicy, and smooth, it covers the slice, and on warm baked goods, it melts within seconds.

It becomes particularly appealing with salted butter underneath, as the salt cuts through the sweetness. A spoonful of currant or raspberry jelly on top adds a touch of acidity, turning a simple slice of bread into a small dessert. Fruity berry cakes and desserts with a bit of acidity also pair well with this cream.

In the dessert kitchen, it fills cakes and cookies, serves as a dollop on vanilla ice cream, or is stirred by the spoonful into warm milk. Stirred into yogurt, quark, or rice pudding, it turns a simple bowl into a dessert in no time at all. In our breakfast selection, it stands next to the lemon cream from the same producer. True sweet tooths skip the bread anyway and eat it straight from the spoon.

A Nordic cookie in a Sicilian kettle

The spiced cookie is called Speculoos in Belgium, Speculaas in the Netherlands, and Spekulatius in Germany, and everywhere it has been part of the Advent season for centuries.

It is traditionally pressed into carved wooden molds, which is why saints, ships, and windmills appear on it. Because the dough is rolled out thinly and baked until firm, the sugar in it caramelizes and gives the cookie its dark base note. Nothing of the images remains in the cream, but the spice and that roasted sweetness certainly do—and that is exactly what matters here.

In Ribera, where Scyavuru usually processes citrus fruits, almonds, and pistachios into creams, this Nordic cookie is translated using the same technique. The jar bears the company's motto, Storie di gusti e sapori di Sicilia, stories of tastes and flavors of Sicily. With this variety, the story for once comes from further north. Further specialties from Scyavuru can be found right next to it on the shelf.