Hungarian soft cake-ish honey cookies | Mezeskalacs | No mixer

Описание: These cookies are super delicious, and I encourage everyone to make them for any festive occasion. They are very popular amongst Hungarians during Christmas, and they are perfect as a gift inside a beautiful cookie tin. Seriously delicious and highly addictive!
Below I have the list of ingredients and the instructions for you. I tried to keep the video short, so I have enhanced the speed of some parts.

Ingredients:
For the dough:
1kg plain flour = 6 and 2/3 cups, plus extra flour for kneading and rolling
500gr honey = 1 and 1/4 cups
100gr granulated sugar = 2/5 of a cup
100gr powder sugar = 1/2 of a cup
200gr butter
2 tsp baking soda
3 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp mixture of clove/anise/cardamom
1 whole egg
3 yolks (we will use the 3 egg white, so store them in a food container)

For the shiny cookie coat:
use the egg whites we kept

For the icing:
the remaining egg whites
icing sugar
5 drops of lemon

Instruction:
00:00 Melt the butter, add the 2 sugars and stir well until combined.
00:35 Add the honey and continue stirring
00:52 Slowly add the 1 whole egg and the yolks
01:13 In a separate bowl sift the flour
01:26 Add the b. soda and the spices and mix well
01:47 Combine the two mixtures. At first, you may feel that there is too much flour, but just keep stirring and it will all be absorbed.
02:47 Spread some flour on a surface, place the dough and knead. Add extra flour only when the dough starts sticking on your hands.
03:14 Wrap the dough with cling film and place it in the fridge for at least 8 hours or overnight.
03:24 (optional step) Traditionally you can decorate the cookies with any nuts and seeds you have at home. Here I used walnuts, almonds, raisins and sunflower seeds.
03:28 Bake at 180C for 8 minutes
03:35 You will help your cookie cutters do their job properly by using some flour on the rolling surface. Doing so, the dough will not stick on the surface, and this will help you transfer the cookies with your cookie cutters.
04:07 (optional step) Once the first batch of cookies is out, place them on a rack so you can apply a thin layer of egg white, while they are still hot. This will make your cookies shiny.
04:33 Please make sure your dough is thick enough, otherwise you will not achieve the soft caky texture.
04:47 Stir the remaining egg whites with icing sugar, add 5 drops of lemon. Keep adding sugar until you get the desired texture.
05:05 Place the icing in an icing bag (if you have). I don't, so I just used a plastic food bag.
05:13 Decorate your cookies. Don't panic if you don't make it perfect. Remember they are homemade!
05:47 Because many of my friends are Hungarian, I often receive these in cookie tins. I find them the perfect to store your delicious honey softies.

Enjoy!