PREPARATION

First, original recipe calls for instant coffee but I had no sense to run to the shop just for this. Secondary: And I mixed the rye flour with the all purpose flour as well. Third thing is, I made only a half of a volume described in recipe.

Pour into a medium saucepan the filtered coffee and the water.
Add the butter, sugar and honey to the dissolved coffee in the saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil on medium heat and cook, stirring, just until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves and the mixture is homogenous. Take off the heat, pour it into a large bowl. and cool for about 10-15 minutes.
Add all the spices – vanilla, allspice, nutmeg and anise. You can also add cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, mint extract, etc. Whisk in the eggs, the baking soda dissolved in vinegar and baking powder. You will notice that the mixture will fizz a little when it’s all mixed up.
Add the flour and mix with a large wooden spoon until all the flour is incorporated.
Cover the batter with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and set aside at room temperature for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 165°C (325°F). Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Shape the batter into approximately 1 Tablespoon balls and place them on the prepared baking sheet, leaving some room around each cookie, since they will expand while baking. I use a 1 Tablespoon measuring scoop to get the batter out of the bowl and then roll it around in my hands. This will make sure that all the cookies are the same size and will bake evenly.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes. Do not over bake, or the cookies will be too hard.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and the milk to make a glaze. You can flavor the glaze by adding some kind of extract to it, like vanilla, mint, almond, etc.

Dip the cooled cookies into the glaze, letting the excess run off. Set the glazed cookies on a rack or parchment paper to dry. When the glaze is dry, you can flip the cookies over and glaze the other side as well. When glazing the cookies, work fast, since the glaze will be harder to work with when it starts to dry up. You can add a tiny splash more of milk to thin it out if it hardens.

Store the cookies at room temperature in a sealed container.

My own changes made in this recipe: I made only a half of the recipe. Instead of instant coffee I used filtered coffee. Instead of a white flour I used a mix of white and rye flour. Instead of white sugar in the batter I used Belgian dark Kandij sugar (delicious!) and instead of milky butter I used a baking margarine, which makes a shelf life of my cookies longer. And I also mixed my own mix of spices.

Olga’s Notes:
If using mixer to make the cookie batter, make sure to use a good quality & STRONG machine, since this batter is seriously thick and heavy and may burn out a weaker model. Best would be to halve the batter in order to process it in the machine.

I made only a half of this recipe and have more than 70 cookies. Another amazing thing about these cookies is that you can store them very well for at least a week or two in an airtight container or you can freeze them in an airtight container for a few months. After simply thaw the cookies and done.