Day 35 - Honey Cookies

Saturday, December 17, 2011

I cannot believe that Christmas is a week away!! A Christmas tradition on my Mom's side of the family is to make HONEY COOKIES. My Mom and her sisters all get together and make these cookies that their mother (my Grandmother) used to make every Christmas. My Grandmother passed away when I was a baby but I can remember going to my Grandfather's house at a young age where my mom and her sisters would gather (a few of us kids would tag along) to make the honey cookies.

The cookies are a bit of a project to make so there have been a few Christmases when the cookies didn't get made due to everyone's busy schedules. This year was one of those years and we decided we weren't going to get together to make the cookies; so my Dad and I decided to take it on ourselves. I had to make a few phone calls to figure out who had the recipe and when I finally did get it, it was very vague so I had to ask a bunch of questions to get the details on the step by step process. After all, I've only watched them get made, I never actually made them my self.

So my Dad and I started by making the dough which consists of flour, eggs, baking powder, sugar, and crisco. We made the dough directly on the counter (instead of in a bowl). I poured out all of the flour and made a round shape with a hole in the center (kind of like a volcano). The sugar and baking powder are sprinkled on the flour and the eggs (10 of them) are cracked right into the middle of the volcano along with the crisco. Slowly you begin to work the flour into the eggs in the center until the dough comes together.

Once the dough is kneaded, we each started with a small amount of dough to roll out. I was instructed to cover the dough that wasn't being used so it doesn't get hard. The dough has to be rolled out extremely thin. My Mom actually said to me "just when you think the dough is thin enough, roll it some more."

When the dough is as thin as it can get, we cut long skinny strips of dough which are then folded into "bows." The two shapes we make with the dough are bows and balls. The balls are just small rolled pieces of dough.

Happy camper rolling dough balls

Bows ready to be fried! 

When my Dad and I had all of our bows made and dough balls rolled, we started to fry them. They cook up really quickly in the oil and when they come out they are put on a rack to let the excess oil drip off.

In the meantime while my Dad was doing the frying, I put some honey over low heat to let it thin out. When the cookies are slightly cooled, I dip them in the honey, sprinkle them with nonpareil sprinkles, and set them on parchment paper to cool completely.

Finished Cookies! 

This whole process takes quite a while but it's totally worth it. The cookies are crisp, sweet and delicious. The only down side about making these cookies is that the kitchen becomes a total mess and somehow you become covered in honey and sprinkles!

I'm so glad I got to experience making these cookies first hand and I can't wait to share them with my family, especially my aunts - that will be the real test to see out how they came out!

Stay tuned for next week… I'll be making lots of Christmas cookies!