Speculaas spice substitutes

The Dutch blend rebuilt from ordinary baking spices, including the white pepper that defines it.

Best for

speculaas and speculoos cookies, Sinterklaas pepernoten and kruidnoten, spiced cake, apple pie and Dutch appelflappen, speculoos-flavoured buttercream and ice cream

The most accurate option and worth doing, because commercial speculaas spice is mostly cinnamon padded out anyway. The white pepper is the interesting part: at half a teaspoon in three tablespoons you will not taste heat, but you will notice a faint warm prickle at the back of the palate, and that is the note people cannot name when they say a homemade version tastes American rather than Dutch. Coriander seed adds a light citrusy background that supports it. Keeps about six months, though the cardamom fades first.

The most commonly stocked autumn blend, corrected toward the Dutch profile.

Best for

speculaas and speculoos cookies, spiced sheet cakes and muffins, cookie butter and cheesecake bases, coffee drinks and whipped cream

Very close once corrected, and this is the swap most people should use. Pumpkin pie spice already covers cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves, so the base is right; what it lacks is cloves in quantity, cardamom, coriander and the pepper. Without those additions it is still nice, just softer and more nutmeg-forward, and the cookies read as American spice cookies rather than speculaas. Note pumpkin pie spice is usually more ginger-forward than speculaas spice, which is worth knowing if you dislike a strong ginger note.

The British sweet-baking blend of cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, clove and often mace.

Best for

speculaas, speculoos and pepernoten, spiced fruit cake and biscuits, apple desserts, cooks in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand

Arguably the closest single jar of all, and better than pumpkin pie spice, because it already contains ground coriander and mace, which are two spices most American blends leave out and which speculaas depends on. The differences are that mixed spice usually includes allspice, which speculaas normally does not, and that it carries less cinnamon proportionally. So the cookies taste slightly more coriander-and-allspice scented and a touch less overwhelmingly cinnamon. Add a pinch of white pepper for authenticity.

The German gingerbread blend, a close cousin built on cinnamon and cloves with anise.

Best for

speculaas and pepernoten, gingerbread, honey cake and Christmas baking, when it is the blend you already own, darker, molasses-heavy doughs

Related but not the same blend, and the difference is anise. Lebkuchen spice leans harder on cloves and includes ground anise and often star anise, so speculaas made with it tastes distinctly German: darker, more liquorice-tinged and less brightly cinnamon-led. That is a genuinely nice cookie, just a different one. If you dislike anise, use two thirds of the quantity and top up with plain cinnamon. Going the other way, speculaas spice in a Lebkuchen recipe tastes lighter and cleaner.

A cinnamon-dominant blend, usually just cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice with a little ginger.

Best for

speculaas cookies and cake, apple and pear desserts, when apple pie spice is the only blend in the cupboard, cookie crumb crusts

A good starting point precisely because it is cinnamon-led like speculaas rather than nutmeg-led. It is also the thinnest of these blends, typically only three or four spices, so it needs the most help: without added cloves and cardamom the cookies taste pleasantly of cinnamon and not much else, warm but simple. The allspice it contains is not traditional here but does no harm. Add white pepper too if you have it, and the result is close.

The honest minimum, which works better than it should because of how cinnamon-heavy the real blend is.

Best for

speculaas or speculoos cookies with a bare cupboard, spiced cakes and biscuits, children's baking, when you do not want to buy more spices

Genuinely usable, and this is the part people find surprising: because cinnamon is about half of a real speculaaskruiden, a cinnamon-and-nutmeg version already smells broadly right. What is missing is depth. The cookies taste flat and one-note next to the real thing, without the clove warmth, the cardamom lift or the pepper prickle that give speculaas its long finish. Any single extra spice you can add, cloves first, then ginger, then cardamom, makes an audible difference.

The least obvious option, and a surprisingly workable one given the shared spices.

Best for

speculaas-spiced cakes and lattes, cookie butter and frostings, when chai spice is the only warm blend you own, adults who like a stronger, more aromatic cookie

Shares cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger and pepper with speculaas spice, which is most of the list, so it works. Two differences to expect: chai blends carry far more cardamom and ginger, so the cookies taste brighter, more floral and hotter, and many contain black pepper rather than white, which is more pungent. Using three quarters of the quantity with extra cinnamon keeps it from taking over. It has no coriander or mace, so the result is punchier and less rounded than true speculaas.