Honey Biscuits (Medenjaki)

A friend of ours in Croatia always bakes Medenjaki biscuits for her grandchildren (and any other children that happen to be around!) and as we all really enjoy them, I keep meaning to ask her for her recipe. In the mean time, I did a bit of research on the internet and found lots of variations of these traditional honey biscuits (usually baked at Christmas, actually, and decorated appropriately, but just as nice now in summer too).

This is my version of Medenjaki, which makes no claims as to authenticity, but is rather delicious anyway!

Ingredients

• 150g butter, at room temp
• 100g icing sugar
• 2 eggs
• 500g plain white flour
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• 3-5 tbsp clear honey
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 185°C and line a tray with baking paper.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Mix the dry ingredients together, then add to the butter and sugar, together with the eggs and honey. The amount of honey you will need depends on how sweet it is – taste it and see if you want more!
4. Mix until it forms a stiff dough-like paste.
5. Take about a tablespoon of the dough and form quickly into a smooth ball in your hands. Flatten it between your palms and place on the baking tray.
6. Continue until you have used up all the dough – this amount makes between 25 – 30 biscuits, depending on size.
7. Bake for 7 -10 minutes until lightly coloured on the outside. They may still be a bit soft inside, but they harden up slightly as they cool.
8. These keep very well for a few days, kept in a tin.

 

 

Brownies – 2 Variations

Or, as they’re called in our house: Pupischnutzis (no idea why!).

This recipe is the result of many, many, many trial-and-error-bakes. There was one 2-week period where we were eating fresh brownies pretty much every day. Of course, after that we couldn’t face another one for months. Anyway the first recipe below is the successful winning recipe which we liked best. It gives a firm, sticky but not too gooey brownie.

The second variation is what I came up with last night when I suddenly really fancied brownies but didn’t have quite all the ingredients necessary at home. So I improvised, and the result was rather good. I’d need to try both brownies at the same time to directly compare and see if I preferred one to the other, but the new, improved recipe from last night really was rather excellent!

Brownies - Recipe #2

Recipe #1
Ingredients

• 250g plain flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1  egg, beaten
• 100g sugar
• 50g cocoa
• 100ml oil
• 200ml milk
• 100g chocolate (half melted, half chopped OR all melted)

Method

1. Mix together and bake in a lined tin at 180°C for 15 – 20 mins.
2. Cut into squares when cool.
3. Keep in an airtight container – they get better and stickier after a day or so!!

 

Recipe #2
Ingredients

• 250g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg, beaten
• 100g sugar
• 50g cocoa
• 100ml oil
• 100ml milk
• 100 – 200ml natural jogurt
• 1 large heaped tbsp chocolate nut spread eg Nutella

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients together to a thick, smooth batter. If it seems a bit dry, add more jogurt.
2. Bake in a lined tin at 180°C for 15 – 20 mins until the top is dry and a wooden skewer poked in comes out clean (or cleanish, but def. not covered in sticky batter!)
3. Cut into squres when cool.

I’m sure if you keep these in an covered container they would also get better, but we polished the lot off last night, so I can’t confirm this.
As to the flavour, I felt the jogurt added a rather pleasant slight tang, but no-one else seemed to notice it, so it could just be that I tasted it because I knew the jogurt was there. Using chocolate spread meant I didn’t have to faff around melting chocolate, which is a bonus as far as I’m concerned, so I will be using that again. I didn’t factor in that there is already quite a bit of oil in there though, so next time I would reduce the oil that goes into the recipe by about 20ml or so.