What are Dutch “pepernoten”?
Pepernoten bakken met kinderen voor Sinterklaas
A2 Dutch listening practice · Dutch · Picked for people who know a little
Pepernoten are small, hard, spiced cookies that flood Dutch supermarkets every November. The dough mixes koek-en-zopie spices (cinnamon, clove, anise, white pepper) with rye flour and brown sugar; the cookies are baked dry and crisp, the size of a coin. During Sinterklaas season, Zwarte Piet tosses pepernoten by the handful at parades and intochten, and Dutch primary schools end up with carpets of crumbs every November. The term sometimes overlaps with kruidnoten (smaller, rounder, mass-produced); purists distinguish pepernoten (rye-based, larger, slightly chewy) from kruidnoten (wheat-based, factory-rounder).
In this clip, a Dutch baker introduces kids to the tradition: “Kijk, ik heb een pepernootje. We gaan samen pepernoten bakken.”
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How common in written Dutch
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Harder words in this video
These words are harder than A2. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-NL 2014 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸In Dutch Sinterklaas and pepernoten-marketing campaigns (Albert Heijn, Jumbo, HEMA)
- ▸In Dutch primary-school Sinterklaas content (Het Klokhuis, Schooltv, Sinterklaasjournaal)
- ▸In Dutch baking and family-recipe writing (Allerhande, Margriet, Libelle)
- ▸In Dutch heritage and folklore journalism (Meertens Instituut, Trouw, De Volkskrant)