What Is Cookie Butter Actually?

Cookie butter is a ridiculously addictive sweet spread. While Trader Joe's helped popularize cookie butter in the U.S. with its brand of Speculoos Cookie Butter (which was also made into a beer), this dessert spread has long been popular in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Despite becoming more popular in the States, there is still a lot that you might not know about cookie butter and what it's made from.

As the name suggests, cookie butter is made from cookies, specifically spiced Belgian cookies called Speculoos. Speculoos are usually made with clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, anise, ginger, and cardamom, which give them a rich, unique flavor. To make cookie butter, speculoos are ground up and mixed with cane sugar, oil, and flour until a creamy consistency is formed. The flavor of cookie butter comes directly from the ground up speculoos and the spices used to make them. While it's a simple combination (and one you can recreate at home), this creamy spread is absurdly rich and is often used by bakers in Europe the way peanut butter is in America. 

The most well-known brand of speculoos used to make cookie butter is Lotus' Biscoff. If you're a frequent flyer, you may recognize them as a typical snack served on airplanes. They were created in 1932 by Belgian baker Jan Boone Sr. and gained popularity at the 1958 World's Fair in Belgium. Since then, Biscoff cookies have become the most well-known brand of speculoos in the world, and the cookie butter made from them is a must-try for anyone with a sweet tooth. 

There are numerous ways to use cookie butter, as it is as versatile as it is delicious. Although there is nothing to stop you from digging in with a spoon and enjoying it (we won't judge), it can also be used as a substitute for peanut butter in many baking recipes. For instance, instead of peanut butter cookies, you can make cookie butter cookies, or change a peanut butter cheesecake into a cookie butter cheesecake with Biscoff cookies as a crust. It can be added to brownie batter or muffin batter, or melted into a rich dip or glaze. 

If baking isn't your forte, cookie butter also makes a great addition to smoothies, milkshakes, sandwiches, bagels, waffles, and breakfast parfaits. For those of you who can't get enough of it, you can even melt it and use it as a topping for Trader Joe's cookie butter ice cream. 

Cookie butter also goes great with coffee, just like the cookies it's made out of. You can use it to create your own homemade frappuccino or add some melted cookie butter to your hot coffee for a punch of sweetness. Seriously, there is so much you can do with a jar of cookie butter that you'll start to wonder how you ever lived without it in your pantry!