Medenjaci (Ginger Honey) Sandwich Cookies

Croatian American Holiday Baking

I did not grow up with Medenjaci. My mother, an avid baker, who filled full notebooks of ONLY Christmas recipes, often made gingerbread cookies, ginger spice biscuits, and homemade gingerbread houses, with the help of my brother and me. She was more American in her holiday cookie and bars baking, but did employ various family secret Croatian baking recipes, like Poppyseed, Walnut, and Almond rolls, Povitica, another version of walnut roll, and the beloved fried Fritule dough.

While deep diving into my baking heritage, and into the breakaway strands and origins of Croatian and Dalmatian Croatian cooking and baking, I came upon new discoveries, which I may have had at some point in my life, created by the deft hands of my mother, or delivered to us by our Croatian Queens relatives from local bakeries when they visited us upstate for the holidays.

These Medenjaci are more of the crisp biscuit variety, and, looking back, I will look to alter them a bit to produce a softer, more fluffy cookie variety, only because I decided to forego the royal icing decoration on top and create distinctly Croatian-American Medenjaci, as sandwich cookies. Nested in between the two spicy ginger honey cookies is a generous layer of cream cheese filling, consisting of butter, cream cheese, and sugar, and flavored with a little extra ginger and honey to compliment the flavors.

Whether you make the cookies as they are (with a good, dependable snap and perfect for dunking into tea or coffee), or go the whole hog and make yourself an extra sweet surprise in the middle of a holiday sandwich, these Medenjace are a great place to start the holiday baking season.

Medenjaci Sandwich Cookies

Mimi

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Course Breakfast, Snack

Cuisine American

Ingredients

  

• 2 Cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tbsp salt
• 1/4 tbsp baking soda
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tbsp allspice
• 1/4 tbsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tbsp nutmeg
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1/2 Cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 Cup honey (I use clove honey because I love the taste)
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg

Filling

• 6 tbsp butter, softened
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 and a half cups of confectioners sugar
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1/2 tbsp ground ginger

Instructions

 

• In a bowl, whisk the dryingredients: flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, andnutmeg.
  
• Separately,beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add in honey, vanilla, and egg.
  
• Add flourmixture until incorporated.
  
• Split thedough in half and form each into a flattened disc (you may have to knead just aturn or two to make sure the dough is fully solid.) Wrap each disc in plasticand refrigerate for two hours.
  
• I line my bakingsheets with parchment and set the oven for 350 degrees F. Flour the surface androll out one of the discs until thin as desired, about 1/4 inch is good for thesnappy biscuits. I kept my cookies in cut circles, but using holiday shapesworks too.

   

  Bake for about10-12 minutes, until golden brown. The two discs of dough should make about twodozen or more thin biscuits. Allow to cool (I froze mine) and make the creamcheese filling.

Notes

Filling:

In a mixer, combine the cream cheese and butter until creamy, fluffy, and fully integrated. Add in the vanilla and combine, then adding in the confectioner’s sugar bit by bit until fully combined. Add in the ginger and honey as well. Once finished, I also refrigerated this filling to make it easier to spread.

 

(*I neglected to snap photos of the cream cheese filling, since I was so excited it was all coming to plan:) Instead, here is a nice cookie close up boasting of the rich ocean of cream cheese to be found at the heart of these cookies…)

 

 

When all elements are cooled, using a palette knife, spread a thick, but even layer of cream cheese filling between two Medenjace, gently pressing the cookies down to secure each sandwich.

 

If you prefer to eat the Medenjace alone, save a few and do the dunk into the caffeine of your choice. I did the dunk with the sandwich cookies…into a big glass of milk.

Keyword Cookies, Medenjaci Sandwich, Medenjaci Sandwich Cookies, Sandwich Cookies