Monday Christmas Cookie (1) - Slovakian Honey Cakes

Last month at work has been really bad for my shapes. Actually, I became really shaped this time, way more than I wish I would. You guessed it - pre-Christmas craze. Danes are amazingly fond of sweets. They give cakes, cookies and sweets as an excuse for any occasion: last day at work, B-days, Weddings, Friday croissants...
Plus they really make sure that sweet is sweet. And I thought we (we means Slovak) are the oversugared cooks. I was mistaken...

Anyway, complaining will not do me any good (how many calories do we burn while complaining, btw... Does anyone know?).... It was fun (after all) to try out all the different candies, cookies, desserts and cakes. I even learned how to bake one of them and enriched my Danish with the word "slik" - candy. (I really like the way it sounds, it is very "in").

On my last day at work (for this year only), I felt obliged to contribute to the "cookie madness". Since several people were curious earlier how I like the Danish ones and what we eat for Christmas, I decided to bake our traditional :

SLOVAKIAN HONEY CAKES:
(Medovniky)

prep time: 1 hour and more depending on how pretty you want them to be
makes: a giant can (I lost the count after 70, which was enough for our department)

• 650 g flour
• 250 g brown sugar
• 1 tbsp marmalade (I used orange zest)
• 100 g honey
• 100 g lard (pork fat, bleh)
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp "pumpernikel spice" (grind together cinnamon, cloves and badyan)
• 1 tsp baking powder
  

Mix together lard, honey and marmalade together in a pan and let melt over moderate heat. Take off the stove and let it cool down for couple of minutes.
Meantime, measure the flour, mix together with the rest of ingredients and start pouring the warm fat mixture. Mix thoroughly until you get a nice warm dough. (this step is really easy, the lard and eggs really work well with the flour).

Divide the dough into 6 balls, roll out (0,5 cm thick) and cut out various "Christmas shapes". I used mushrooms, stars, flowers, circles, moons and hearts, of course. My mum has a lovely Christmas Tree cookie cutter, horse shoe (brings luck), pig (brings happiness and wealth), but she hid them from me when I moved out :-(

Place them on a baking tray, press in pieces of nuts, almonds, raisins or seeds and bake at 180 degrees for about 5 minutes or until you can smell them all around. for extra golden color, you can brush them with egg yolks prior to baking. This also helps nuts and other toppings to stay glued to the cookie.

Back home we decorate them with ice frosting (powdered sugar whipped with egg whites), but I had no patience for that. I melted some chocolate with butter and half-dipped some of them.

Originally I put them on a Christmas tree as decorations and then we eat them off, but this time I had none left. Everybody seemed to enjoy them. I brought a few back home, but met Tompa and his colleagues in a bar later on for a few beers and my last Honey cakes never seen the morning light...

Sad as it can be, I flew home for Christmas last week, and there, one never runs out of "medovniky". They are everywhere! People (like my dad) build houses out of them with little sweet people and ice frosting as "snowy paths" (??? don't ask me, munching on a "roof" or a "happy neighbour" does not sound appetizing to me....). But it looks pretty, doesnt it ?

Aahh... Good´Ol Christmas!