The young man would purchase this cake at the kermis, the funfair, or at the bakery, when he was ready to declare his love for someone. Often, the cake was rectangular and decorated with almonds or sweet words in piped icing, other times it was in the shape of a person, like the ones in the larger wooden speculaas molds.
In another painting by Jan Steen, De Koekvrijer, (The Cake Suitor, ca. 1663 -1665), we see a young man lifting his hat towards a young woman who is seated. In his other hand, he holds a large hylickmaker. The woman does not immediately take it. Instead, she looks straight at us, slightly amused. We can read a lot into the details in the painting (the woman is sewing, the bed behind her has opened curtains, the door is open to the outside, the way he is holding the cake...but I'll leave that to your imagination!).
Recipes for hylickmakers appeared in cookbooks as early as 1746, but they unfortunately are no longer part of the proposal tradition. The Volmaakte Hollandsche Keukenmeid lists as ingredients for the "hylikmaker": flour, brown sugar, honey, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, a pinch of potash, and candied citron and orange peel. She then casually mentions: "Neemt dan de rolstok en maakt het deeg daar mede plat" (Take a rolling pin and make the dough flat").
Now....I have tried this recipe, and our keukenmeiden (kitchen maids) back in the day must have been as strong as an ox, because the moment the honey with the sugar cools down, this dough is tougher to roll than concrete! Annie van 't Veer warns us about this in her "Oud-Hollands Kookboek", explaining that bakers back in the day used to knead this dough by pushing down on it with an iron bar, a so-called breaker bar. I could have used one of those!
These were not everyday treats. They were baked with purpose and offered as part of a quiet negotiation between families, intentions, and futures. The citron, orange peel, and warm spices signal luxury and intention. Because the dough was so hard to roll, the second time I baked these cakes I decided to add a little bit of additional luxury, and added butter and an egg. I still rolled it out thin, like both Annie and the Keukenmeid suggest, but it was a bit easier to do! I rolled the dough out between two plastic sheets to make it easier to lift from the table.
For this recipe, I included both candied citron and candied orange. If you don't have any left over from your Christmas baking, don't worry. I don't know that the citron added that much special flavor to the cake, and the candied orange can easily be substituted with orange zest.
This recipe baked 3 nine inch (23 cm) gingerbread men and a rectangular 11 x 7 inch (28 x 17.5 cm) cake, as can be seen in the picture. Since not many of us have those large speculaas molds, I chose a large gingerbread cookie cutter instead. You can also use heart shaped cookie cutters, or any other Valentine Day cutters! These cookies crisp up when they cool.
Vrijerskoek
in a bowl, and when the sugar honey mix has cooled enough to handle to the touch, pour it in the bowl and mix. Then add in 1 egg, the cold butter, and continue to mix until all the ingredients have blended. If you are using citron and orange peel or zest, mix it in now.
