Filled honey cookies

These cookies are fun to make, are wonderfully scented by honey and spices and can be kept in a tightly closed box for quite a while. In fact, they develop the best taste after about a week.

The dough
150 g honey
100 g butter
1 ei
300 g flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
a pinch of salt
a pinch each of cardemon, nutmeg, ginger powder, cinnamon
2 cloves
a few strips of orange zest

The filling
handful of raisins, steeped in hot tea, eventually with a bit of rum
50 gram marzipan

Warm the honey on waterbath with all the spices and orange zest till the smells intensify and the honey becomes thimmer. It should not boil. Let the honey cool a bit, throw away the cloves and the zest.
Stir butter into the honey, then add an egg.

Add the soda, salt and flour to the mixture and knead the dough very well. Here you can see the difference between the dough before and after the kneading: it becomes sturdier, lesss sticky, but remains quite soft and easy to work with.

After kneading wrap the dought into plastic and leave to rest in the fridge for 2 days. This greatly improves the texture of the cookies.
On the day you want to make cookies, let the dough warm up for half an hour on the counter. Pinch pieces the size of a large marble off the dough. Fill each with the raisins or marzipan and roll into a ball-shape.

Bake at 200 C for 15-20 minutes. The cookies can be decorated with an eggwash, apply it with a brush over the whole cookie or in a pattern.