- Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making some amazing honey cookies
bursting with flavor.
So let's get started.
(light music)
First off, into a medium bowl,
I want three cups or 360 grams of all-purpose flour.
These cookies whip up really fast.
Now I want 1/2 a teaspoon of salt.
This gives us a really nice contrast
for that sweet, amazing honey.
In you go.
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
and one teaspoon of baking powder.
This will puff the cookies up just perfectly.
(glass clinking)
Grab a whisk.
Our scale is done.
And we're gonna whisk this up just to really distribute
all those leavening agents.
(whisk clicking)
That looks great.
Now it's time to grab your stand mixer or a big bowl
if you're using an electric hand mixer.
Now it's time for the good stuff.
I want one cup or 226 grams of unsalted butter,
and it should be softened.
If your butter is properly softened, it'll bend.
You can press into it with just a little bit of resistance.
And that means it'll mix up really well.
I want the butter and honey to be completely combined here.
Okay.
To the bowl, I'm gonna add one cup or 200 grams
of granulated sugar.
Popping the paddle on and we're gonna mix this
on medium for just a few seconds
so the butter and sugar get a chance to mix up.
(mixer whirring)
There we go.
All right.
It's always a good idea to cream your butter
if you're gonna add anything to it,
because there could be
some little harder parts lurking around
that'll be difficult to mix in later.
And now it's time for the star. (laughing)
(John laughing)
(honey thumping)
(laughing) Oh, I should've took this off.
Okay, there we go.
Now it's time for the star ingredient,
and that's the honey.
This honey comes from our hives,
so it's extra special to me.
All the flowers that are on our property
like help to make this amazing honey.
It smells so good.
One note about this recipe.
This is the flavor,
and honey is not honey is not honey.
There's different types.
There's different categories.
There's different qualities.
So use a honey that you really enjoy the taste of
because these cookies
are like honey magically transformed into a cookie.
You will taste this,
so just make sure that you like it.
Pour that honey in.
Wow, looky here, that looks amazing.
And one of the nice things about having bees is,
every year is different.
There's different wildflowers growing in our fields.
It might be a wetter year or drier,
so the honey could be a light color or dark amber.
It's always gonna be a little bit of a surprise
when you harvest it.
Now we're gonna mix this on medium speed
for about a minute until it's really well-combined.
And yes, you should scrape the bowl down.
(mixer whirring)
There we go.
I love the color.
I love the smell.
I love the taste.
In fact, this would be delicious (laughing)
just on toast.
(mixer whirring continues)
While that mixes, I'm gonna crack two large eggs
into a bowl.
(mixer whirring continues)
This looks really nicely mixed.
Scrape the bowl down.
I love these cookies any time of year.
They're always gonna be delicious.
And George and Lachlan will like scarf them up in a moment.
But these are actually a traditional cookie
in so many different cultures.
Honey is one of the original sweeteners
before sugarcane got refined and everything like that.
So you'll find honey cookies in the Jewish tradition,
like these are wonderful treats for Rosh Hashanah.
This is also a delicious Christmas cookie from Greece.
So melomakarona, that's not pronouncing it correctly,
but it's pretty close.
And melo or meli means honey, so these are honey cookies.
And I grew up with these during Christmastime.
Some people might have had them during Hanukkah
or New Years, and sometimes just your grandma loved
to make a honey cookie because they are delicious.
All right, back to business.
We're gonna add two eggs in, one at a time,
while mixing on medium-low.
(mixer whirring)
So one.
Bloop.
(mixer whirring continues)
And two.
(mixer whirring continues)
I also want one teaspoon of vanilla,
just for a little extra kiss of flavor.
(chimes ringing)
I want you to look into the bowl now
because some people get worried at this time.
You've got a beautiful concoction of butter,
honey, and sugar.
Then you added those eggs in
and now it's a little bit cottage cheesy, like this.
That's fine, you're not making a like,
this isn't like a delicate, very ethereal cake.
These are cookies.
It'll come together with the flour.
So all you wanna do right now is scrape the bowl down
and go to the next step.
If you look at my spatula right now,
you'll see there's a very loose mixture on top,
but the bottom has a really thick compacted butter mixture.
So that's why scraping is so important.
You want a homogenous mixture that's the same throughout
so every cookie bakes up the same.
(mixer whirring) Okay.
One more mix just to break things up a little bit.
(mixer whirring continues)
There we go, just one more time.
Just that little bit of extra mixing
really brought things together.
Now, instead of looking like cottage cheese,
I have finer granules of butter and sugar mixed in
with that egg.
So it'll give me a much better cookie.
With the mixer on low,
I'm gonna gradually add the flour in
and mix until it's just almost combined.
Just a little sprinkle.
And by the way, if you wanted to,
you definitely could've added some spices in.
Maybe 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, a little cardamom,
allspice, some nutmeg.
It's really up to you and what flavors you love.
Okay. (glass clinking)
This came together so beautifully.
I have a wonderful homogenous batter.
All that's left is a final scrape right now
to make sure there's nothing lurking
on the bottom or sides.
By the way, if this recipe rings a bell and you're like,
"Wait a second, I make a cookie like this
or my grandmother made one, but in our culture,
we use this or that or there's several differences,"
let me know in the comments.
I love learning about new recipes,
and I am 100% sure that there's like a Turkish cookie
that is almost exactly the same
or there's a Persian variety that has maybe like
a little bit of rose water or some pistachios thrown in.
Just let me know.
I feel like I'm just making up recipes now,
so leave a comment, I'm all ears.
In the meantime, this dough needs to chill.
These cookies will spread in the oven,
and it really needs the setup time.
So I want at least one hour.
Two is gonna be good.
Overnight, also an option.
Just cover this up, pop it into the fridge,
and we'll be back with the magic of editing.
(light music continues)
Towards the end of your chill time,
set that oven to 350 so it's nice and hot
when you scoop out your dough.
We're gonna scoop out 1 1/2-tablespoon sized balls of dough.
Give it a roll.
And plop those onto your parchment-lined baking sheet.
These cookies are so good, so soft and delicious.
But they will spread,
so we're gonna work in batches
and just do one tray at a time.
Give them about three inches of space in between each ball.
Just a quick roll will really give them a nice shape.
My first batch is ready to go into the oven,
350 for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are browning.
While they bake, I'm gonna roll the second batch out.
(oven door clicking)
I'm not kidding.
I've been thinking about all the different variations
of this cookie around the world.
There's a Korean version.
There is a Turkish version, Persian, the list goes on.
And I was like, "Oh my gosh, pistachios, walnuts,
like all these other flavors can get mixed in."
So just for fun, I'm gonna roll a couple of these guys
in some chopped nuts.
I bet it'll be like crunchy and like delicious.
Or it could be a total failure, we'll see.
(oven door clicking) (timer dinging)
Okay, hot out of the oven, look at these.
If they kind of creeped together
or if they're a little bit too spread out for your taste,
grab a big cookie cutter and just corral them together.
They need to finish baking on this baking sheet,
so give them five minutes to kinda firm up.
In the meantime, if you work fast,
you can (metal whooshing)
just corral them back into a beautiful circle
with a little bit more height.
It's up to you, though.
(metal whooshing)
Outta the oven, look at these guys, oh my gosh.
I'm in love with the nuts already.
I know it's gonna taste amazing,
but I will wait and do an actual taste test.
(light music continues)
(nuts crunching)
(John laughing)
That is so delicious.
Those crunchy toasted nuts
with the soft chewy honey cookie are amazing.
I'm definitely adding this tip into the blog post.
So delicious.
I hope you get a chance to try this recipe,
and if you liked this video, check out my cookie playlist.