Baklava Cookies

I really like all of the flavors in baklava, but it’s never quite right. I get a piece and I’m so excited, but then I can’t finish it because it’s usually dry. I’m not quite sure what I can do to overcome that, but this cookie with the flavors of baklava might be just the thing. 

This cookie starts with a cake mix base, which is a nice time saver. That in itself should help from the dryness I associate with baklava. You can use any nuts that you have on hand. Walnuts and pistachios are traditional, but I don’t usually have walnuts on hand. I used pistachios, almonds, and pecans. Not traditional, but more to my tastes! 

You partially bake these cookies, then make an indentation and fill it, then finish baking. That’s a slightly different technique that I am used to, but it makes sense as the indentation usually disappears while baking, and the filling doesn’t need much extra time in the oven. These were all that I dreamed of, without being dry! A nice soft cookie topped with a flavorful filling!

Baklava Cookies
1 box vanilla cake mix
2 eggs
⅓ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup melted butter
1 cup assorted nuts, chopped
⅓ cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
½ teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons honey
½ cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon lemon juice
½-1 tablespoon warm water

Heat the oven to 350°. Line two baking sheets with silicon baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the cake mix, eggs, and oil on medium until combined. The dough will be thick. In a separate bowl, mix together the melted butter, chopped nuts, brown sugar, 1 tablespoon honey, and cinnamon. 

Scoop the dough into the prepared baking sheets, using about 1 tablespoon per cookie. 

Bake for 9 minutes and then remove from the oven. Make an indentation in the cookies with a tart tamper or similar tool. Fill the indentation with the baklava nut filling. 

Bake for an additional 2-3 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cookies are cool, make the glaze. In a small bowl whisk together the 2 tablespoons honey, powdered sugar, lemon juice and half of the water.  Add additional water if the glaze is too thick. Drizzle over the cookies and allow the glaze to set.

Recipe from Practically Homemade

French Honey Butter Cookies

One of the things that we tend to keep on hand in our kitchen is local honey. These cookies are French Honey Butter Cookies, but I have no idea in what way they are French. None the less, I thought a French-named cookie would be appropriate for the first day of the Paris Olympics. I don’t follow many sports, but I’m a huge gymnastics fan, and have been since the 1980s. What I love about the Olympics is the chance to see athletes from all sorts of places- not just the few folks regularly shown on television.

This is a slice-and-bake cookie, which is perfect when the house is warm. I made the dough one day, and then baked them first thing the next morning. This makes an extremely small batch of cookies, about18, so I was able to bake them all at once. This recipe used an interesting method, where you chill the dough to firm it up, then shape the dough into a cylinder. This recipe makes so few that I didn’t even divide the dough into two rolls!

The honey I used for this recipe had been picked up by my husband at a local food festival. It isn’t exactly a clear honey, nor is it a spread. It’s something in the middle, which was interesting to use. It didn’t mix in as quickly as a liquid honey, which is why you need to take some care with the glaze. I started with just a bit of milk, made sure the honey was incorporated, before adding milk to get the glaze to the right consistency. Watch the cookies while they bake, as I felt a couple of mine could have baked a minute less. The glaze covered perfectly, making for some lovely cookies.

French Honey Butter Cookies
½ cup butter, room temperature
¼ cup powdered sugar
1 egg yolk
¼ teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon honey
1 ⅛ cups flour
¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon milk

In a mixer bowl, cream the butter and powdered sugar until well combined. Add the egg yolk, vanilla, and honey and mix on medium to make a consistent mixture. With the mixer running on low, gradually stir in the flour and salt. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, the dough should be firm enough to form into a log, about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap the dough log in plastic and refrigerate overnight.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and discard the plastic wrap. Slice the dough into discs, about 1/3” thick. Place on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake for 12-14 minutes, until set. The cookies should be barely browned along the edges (at most). Allow the cookies to cool completely on a wire rack before glazing.

Make the glaze: in a small bowl whisk the powdered sugar, honey, and 1 teaspoon milk. Add more milk as the glaze starts to come together, until the glaze is thick but still somewhat liquid. Using a small teaspoon, spoon the glaze on the cooled cookies in a circular pattern. Allow the glaze to set before serving.

Recipe from The Gardening Foodie

Bee Sting Bars

Whenever I have a particularly long or busy week, I find a lot of solace in looking through recipes that I have pinned and think about what I can bake. I have a well-stocked pantry, so I try to consider recipes that don’t call for too many special ingredients. I find it surprising how many baked treats use ingredients that I have. Of course, it is helpful that I keep things like cream cheese, honey, several types of chocolate chips, and sliced almonds on hand!

This bar cookie is based on the German Bienenstich Cake, which is a yeasted cake with honey and sliced almonds. This recipe is much easier to make, which is wonderful as I had thought about making the original cake, but I’m scared away whenever I read the recipe. This has a shortbread base, topped with a honey/almond topping. You can use sliced almond that have the skins on or not; it doesn’t matter. In the States it is easier to find the ones with skin, but I ordered mine from a company that has the ones I like.

When you make these bars, the recipe warns that the base is crumbly, and they are not kidding. The dough does stick together well, so that was helpful. I found that any larger bits of butter weren’t sticky, so I did away with those. Refrigerating the dough helps it stay together, so once I made the topping and baked the bars, I had no issue at all. With my giant knife I had, I cut these into lovely diamond shapes. These bars have a good substantial shortbread base, but these are all about the topping. It has wonderful almond flavor and I wonder why it took me so long to bake these!

Bee Sting Bars
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
8.5 ounces flour

6 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons amaretto
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups sliced almonds

Line an 8” square pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar until well combined. Add the vanilla and salt and stir to incorporate. Add the flour, mixing on low. The mixture will be very crumbly. Press the dough into the 8” pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium saucepan, combine all of the topping ingredients: butter, sugar, honey, amaretto, vanilla, and sliced almonds. Heat the saucepan over medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil, stirring occasionally. Boil for two minutes and then remove the mixture from the heat. Pour the topping onto the shortbread base, making sure the mixture is evenly distributed.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until the bars are golden. Allow the bars to cool before cutting into pieces.

Recipe from Fifteen Spatulas

Pumpkin and Honey Cookies

For those of you who read this blog with any regularity, you likely know that I am not the biggest fan of pumpkin. The flavor is fine, but I find that when I use pumpkin in baking it makes things gummy, and that’s a texture that I don’t like. I came across pumpkin spice spread and thought that it was similar to apple butter, so I figured I could use it in a recipe. This recipe was perfect, and as it contained a small amount of the spread, I wasn’t concerned it would be gummy.

These cookies were originally for Rosh Hashanah, as they contained apple and honey. I do love baking with apple butter, but I figured pumpkin would be just as nice. You could likely use any jam or preservative, and that would change the taste of the cookies, but I think it would be interesting! The pumpkin flavor, or any other flavor that you choose to use, would be very subtle.

I found the dough to these cookies to be quite dry, so I ended up adding an egg yolk to help bind the dough together. The original recipe called for the dough to be refrigerated for an hour, but I’m not sure that’s necessary, as usually dough is chilled to reduce stickiness. These baked up nicely, and the icing is simple. I increased the quantities for the icing as I was running out as I topped the cookies. As I said, the flavor of these cookies is subtle, although the honey adds a lovely sweetness. No matter what, they are the picture perfect fall cookie.

Pumpkin and Honey Cookies
¾ cup vegetable shortening
½ cup sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup pumpkin spice spread
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 ¼ cups flour
2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Egg, if required

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
2-4 tablespoon water
Colored sprinkles

In a large mixer bowl, beat the shortening, sugar, and brown sugar on medium until combined. Add the pumpkin spread, cinnamon and vanilla and stir to combine. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking powder, and salt. If the dough seems too dry, mix in an egg yolk or part of an egg to help the dough bind together. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Shape the dough into 1 1/4-inch balls and place them on the prepared baking sheets. Flatten the dough with the palm of your hand to about ½” thick.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are set and slightly browned on the bottom. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cool, make the icing: in a medium bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, honey and 2 tablespoons of water. If the icing is too thick to spread, add additional water until it is spreadable.

Spread a small amount of icing on each cookie and top with colored sprinkles.

Recipe from The Monday Box

Soft Honey Cookies

I came across this simple honey cookie recipe and I was very interested. I like honey and have a number of different varieties on hand. Honey can be difficult to use in baking, as you have to be careful to make sure that it doesn’t burn. This recipe didn’t call for a lot of honey, so I hoped that would help. The big question is which of the honeys that I have on hand should I use? I had buckwheat honey, which would have good flavor, but my jar was nearly empty, so that wasn’t going to work.

For my birthday last year, my niece gave me some tea and honey. I decided that this honey would be nice to use for these cookies, so I didn’t have to mix and match different types of honey. The honey came in a wax-sealed jar, so I had to figure out how to open it. It opened with little problem, and the honey has a nice flavor. One note about honey: as careful as I was, the honey gets everywhere and it’s so sticky.

These cookies came together with no problem. I baked the cookies, and they were perfectly round, but they looked a little plain and didn’t have a distinct flavor. My husband suggested that I add a honey glaze, so I whipped up a simple glaze of powdered sugar, milk, and honey to drizzle over the cookies. That enhanced the honey flavor so that was a good addition. These cookies are easy to make and with the glaze, they are really tasty!

Soft Honey Cookies
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
⅓ cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
3½ cups flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

1 cup powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons honey

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium until light. Stir in the eggs, honey, and vanilla. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir just until the dough comes together.

Scoop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, using about a tablespoon per cookie.

Bake for 9-11 minutes, until the cookies begin to brown along the edges. Allow the cookies to cool before adding the glaze.

Make the glaze: in a small bowl whisk together the powdered sugar and milk until the glaze is the desired consistency. Add the honey and whisk again to incorporate. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cookies.

Recipe from The Semisweet Sisters

Peanut Butter, Honey, and Toffee Cookies

This week, I challenged by husband to find cookies for me to make this week. He accepted the challenge and found a couple of different recipes that sounded good. He, like me, tends to drift towards more hearty flavors. We had recently purchased some mead, and one of the recipes uses mead. I am looking forward to that recipe, but I didn’t want to make it this week since it is also a ginger/molasses cookie. Not really springy at all!

These cookies sounded like a combination I love- peanut butter and honey. I have used honey in cookie recipes before, and you do need to be careful to ensure that your cookies don’t burn. This recipe caught my interest as it suggested adding chocolate chips, or toffee, or other mix-ins to the cookies. Since I had toffee chips, I thought those would be nice. I have toffee chips that aren’t covered with chocolate, but the chocolate covered ones would work as well.

This recipe is quick and makes two dozen cookies. The cookies are sticky, and I was worried that they would spread as I typically refrigerate peanut butter cookies before baking. Thankfully, that wasn’t an issue with these cookies. When flattening the cookies, make sure you use plenty of flour or you will end up with a sticky mess! I did worry that adding toffee bits (which are sugar) to a cookie with honey might be too sweet, but the peanut butter balances the flavor. The toffee chips are not distinct but add a subtle crunch to these tasty cookies.

Peanut Butter, Honey, and Toffee Cookies
¼ cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup honey
1 egg
¾ cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup toffee chips

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicon baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and honey on medium until light. Add the egg, peanut butter, and vanilla and mix on medium to combine. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, salt, and baking soda. Once the dough comes together, fold in the toffee chips.

Drop the cookies onto the prepared baking sheet and flatten the cookies with a fork dipped in flour.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Chinook Honey Company

Browned Butter Honey Pistachio Bars

I’ve done a lot of baking lately, and I have been trying to use up different ingredients that I have on hand. I was looking through things that we have on hand, and I had a partial bag of pistachios. So often, pistachio recipes call for a larger quantity, so I needed to find a recipe that didn’t use a lot. I measured what I had, and I only had about ½ cup, so I was quite limited.

In my searches, I found two possible recipes. One had you roll the dough in pistachios and this one, which sprinkled the pistachios on top of bar cookies. I had made a recipe similar to the first one, so I decided to make these pistachio bars. They are even more special as they have browned butter and honey. I just used regular honey, rather than the specialty honey that the original recipe used.

This makes a small batch, which is what I look for these days! The bars are a cross between bar cookies and cake, but that’s ok. They are very soft when they come out of the oven but then firm up as they cool. They’re never going to be the sturdiest bars, but that’s ok. If you wanted, you could drizzle the bars with additional honey before serving, but that would make them quite messy. I baked the bars for 25 minutes and they are done, but they are still quite gooey in the center. Gooey or not, they taste fantastic, with the pistachio and salt coming to the forefront.

Browned Butter Honey Pistachio Bars

10 tablespoons butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

3 1/2 tablespoons honey

1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup pistachios, roughly chopped

Flaked Sea Salt

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line an 8” square pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

First, brown the butter. Cut the butter into pieces and place in a small saucepan. Heat on medium-low until melted and continue cooking until the butter slightly browns and is fragrant. Do not brown too much.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the browned butter, brown sugar, and honey on medium until combined. Add the egg and egg yolk and beat again to combine. Stop the mixer and add the flour and 1 teaspoon salt. Mix on low until the mixture comes together. Do not overmix.

Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Sprinkle with the chopped pistachios and about ¼ teaspoon sea salt.

Bake for 23-25 minutes, until golden and the edges are set. Allow to cool in the pan and then lift the bars from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack before cutting into bars.

Recipe from Baker by Nature

Cinnamon Oatmeal Honey Biscotti

If you are looking for a recipe that makes a small quantity, I encourage you to look at biscotti recipes. I went through Pinterest and identified a couple of different recipes that I thought would be good. With biscotti, you can usually cut the recipe in half and make a smaller batch. In this case, the recipe made just one biscotti “loaf,” which in the end makes just 12 biscotti. That was perfect for what I was looking for.

I don’t make biscotti all that frequently, and that’s for a couple of reasons. I know that some folks don’t like biscotti all that much, or simply want a softer, chewy cookie. I tend to fall in this camp, as I prefer biscotti after it has only baked once, and it is much softer. The other reason is quite silly, but I think that biscotti are the hardest thing to photograph. It doesn’t seem like photos do a good job of capturing the biscotti. This time I photographed the cookies on the cooling rack, which seemed to be the best option.

Biscotti isn’t hard to make, but it does take a little longer since you bake them twice. This uses a small quantity of standard ingredients, so you may be able to make the with what you have on hand. Honey is the most unusual ingredient, but I had just enough for this recipe. Perhaps a trip to the local honey farm is in the plans this weekend! The only change that I made for this recipe is the time spent baking the biscotti the second time. The original recipe had you bake it 25 minutes, but 15 minutes would be better. These cookies aren’t very sweet, and the small amount of glaze helps add a touch of sweetness.

Cinnamon Oatmeal Honey Biscotti

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup oats

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1/4 cup butter, room temperature

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup powdered sugar

About 1 tablespoon milk

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, oars, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and almonds; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium until smooth. Add the egg and beat again on medium. Add the honey and vanilla and stir to combine.

With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture. With wet hands, shape the dough into a loaf, approximately 10 inches long and 4 inches wide.

Bake for 25 minutes and then remove from the oven. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees.

Allow the biscotti to cool for 5 minutes, and then cut the cookies into ¾” slices with a serrated knife. Stand up the cut biscotti on the baking sheet and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Cool completely.

To glaze: whisk together the powdered sugar and 2 teaspoons milk. Add more milk if the glaze is too thick. Drizzle over the cooled biscotti.

Recipe from My Recipe Reviews