There is nothing more Christmassy for me than these golden honey and cinnamon cookies. (Ok, maybe along with the other 20 things I have in mind.) But for sure these are one of the most traditional sweets at home and making them has turned into some kind of culinary ritual for my mum and I every Christmas. Now ever since I am living in London I have the nostalgic excuse to make these for every pre- and post- Christmas occasions. In Bulgarian these are called “medenki” which translates to something like honey-made. I can’t think of a better name!

The recipe is really simple. Our traditional cookies come glued two by two with an incredible rose hip marmalade – cinnamon – rum filling.  Due to lack of rose hip marmalade here and partly because of laziness I skip this step and I can assure you they are still incredible (just not like mum’s…)

You will need:

2 eggs

¾ cup of oil of your choice

½ cup brown sugar

8 spoons of honey

2 tbsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. soda

About 2 cups of flour 

Start by mixing the eggs with the sugar until well combined. Add the oil, honey and cinnamon. Mix well again. Once well combined, add the soda into the flour and start adding it to the egg mixture slowly while you keep mixing.

Keep adding flour until you get hard dough ready to be rolled. Divide the dough into 5 – 6 pieces to make the rolling easier.

Preheat the oven to 160C^0.

On a floured surface, roll out each piece of dough to the thickness you desire. I prefer thinner cookies. If needed, add more flour to make sure the dough doesn’t stick to the surface.

Start cutting out the shapes you like and place each cookie on a tray lined with baking sheet. You might need few trays here to keep the cookie production going!

Bake for about 8 – 10 min but keep an eye on the cookies as they burn very easily. You want to take them out before they are completely hardened.

Once all batches are baked let them cool down before the decoration. Feel free to glue them two by two with any jam of your choice. This will make them a bit softer and a bit more special.

If you want to decorate them use melted chocolate or royal icing or any type of sprinkle you can think of. I am recently a big fan of coconut as it makes them very snowy.

In any case, these “medenki” are way too delicious to be made just for Christmas, however they will be the perfect addition to your holidays gifts! Enjoy!