Belgian specialties.
Across the language border, a separate tradition
The Belgian sweet-making tradition shares a border with the Dutch one and almost no products with it. The Netherlands built a confectionery culture around licorice; Belgium built one around chocolate. The Netherlands codified its sweets into a set of national habits — hagelslag at breakfast, drop in the office bowl, kruidnoten in November — that show very little regional variation; Belgium's sweets remain stubbornly local, and the cuberdon, the babelutte, and the speculoos all carry the address of their origin in their identity in a way that few Dutch sweets do.
What the two countries share is a long history in the sugar trade and a willingness to treat confectionery as a serious commercial subject. Belgium's contribution to the global sweet vocabulary, the Neuhaus praline of 1912, has no real Dutch counterpart. Conversely, the Belgian shopper who wants a bag of dubbelzoute drop will, in most cities, have to go to a Dutch import shop.
The four entries collected here cover the central pillars: the cuberdon or "nose" of Ghent, the babelutte butter caramel of the Flemish coast, the praline industry that begins with Neuhaus, and the speculoos koek that has become Belgium's most exported confection through Lotus Biscoff. Belgian chocolate more broadly, beyond the praline, is outside the scope of this candy reference.
Cuberdon
cuberdon · neuzeke · neus van Gent
The cone-shaped "Ghent nose": a gum arabic crust around a soft raspberry centre, with a shelf life of about three weeks, so it is rarely exported. Also covers the neuzekesoorlog, the feud between two sellers on the Groentenmarkt that began in 2011.
7 min read→ № 02Babelutte
babelutte — Flemish caramel
The firm butter caramel of West Flanders, made with brown sugar or candy syrup and butter and sold in the seaside towns. Veurne and Heist both claim it, and for many families it is the taste of a summer at the coast.
5 min read→ № 03Belgian pralines
praline (Belgian sense), bonbon
Jean Neuhaus II's filled chocolate of 1912 and Louise Agostini's ballotin box of 1915, which set the pattern for the Belgian chocolate shop. Also the houses that followed: Leonidas, Mary, Godiva and Marcolini.
9 min read→ № 04Speculoos
speculoos — spice biscuit
The crisp caramelised biscuit that grew out of the Saint Nicholas baking tradition, how it differs from spiced Dutch speculaas, the etymology debate, and how Lotus took it worldwide as Biscoff.
7 min read→