If you want to turn simple ingredients into delicious treats, these Ukrainian cookie recipe ideas can bake your way to cookie perfection.
As a local, I’ve had the privilege of trying all sorts of homemade cookies. They’re often rich and buttery with various fillings and flavors that make them truly irresistible.
You can make Ukrainian cookies with jams, condensed milk, honey, and even carrots. My favorite ones are good old oatmeal cookies.
Try some of these ideas for a fuller taste of Ukrainian cookie goodness!
Medivnychky (Honey Cookies)
The honey gives these cookies their unique flavor. The addition of warm spices like cinnamon, cloves, and others makes them even more delectable.
These kinds of cookies are often prepared for Christmas or Saint Nickolas Day in Ukraine.
If you want to make them at home, you’ll need some honey, wheat or rye flour, eggs, sugar, baking soda and your spices of choice, for example, cinnamon.
You can cut the dough into different shapes with cookie cutter stars, Christmas trees, gingerbread men, or any other festive shapes you desire.
For more Christmas food traditions, check out this article on traditional Ukrainian Christmas dishes!
Kiflyky
A classic pastry from Transcarpathia, kiflyky are little crumbly shortbread cookies. Nut, poppy, cheese, and fruit are some of the filling alternatives.
They look like miniature croissants which can be made either as a pastry or as a cookie.
The dough is rolled into small triangles and then filled with your choice of filling before being rolled up and baked until golden brown.
Rohalyky
Rohalyky are very similar to kiflyky except that I’m more familiar with the former term.
My grandmother makes these little croissant-shaped cookies by rolling out a sweet yeast dough and filling it with pitted sour cherries.
After these delicious cookies are baked, they are dusted with powdered sugar for a sweet finishing touch.
Mandryky
Mandryky, or mandryhy, are ceremonial cookies prepared in Ukraine for the Christian holiday in honor of the apostles Peter and Paul on July 12.
Traditional ingredients for these cookies included boiled whey and wheat flour, with additional ingredients like farmer’s cheese, sour cream, eggs and occasionally poppy seeds.
Verhuny, or Khrusty
Verguny, or khrusty, are yeast-free Ukrainian cookies made of flour, butter, eggs, sugar, and kefir (occasionally some alcohol, like horilka or rum, as secret ingredients).
The dough is rolled out and sliced into long strips with a small cut in the middle of each strip. Then you pull one end through the cut to create a twisted shape.
These treats are deep-fried creating the crispiest cookies you can imagine. They’re served dusted with powdered sugar.
You can check out similar traditional Ukrainian sweets here!
Oatmeal cookies
As with oatmeal cookies from many other cultures, oats are the main ingredient in Ukrainian oatmeal cookies.
Following the usual Ukrainian recipe, they’re made with rolled oats, flour, eggs, butter, baking soda, lemon juice, sugar and salt. Homemade oatmeal cookies taste the best to me.
You can make chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (my fave), cranberry oatmeal cookies, or even add nuts or dried fruits.
Rye cookies
Although not as popular as other cookies on the list, Ukrainian rye cookies are quite charming too.
Rye flour is often combined with finely grated carrots, nuts, baking powder, sweeteners and spices for truly unique and cool cookies.
I hope you liked these Ukrainian cookie recipe ideas. Get your cookies ready and enjoy!
Horishky (Walnut-Shaped Cookies)
Horishky are small, nut-shaped cookies filled with boiled condensed milk. The method of preparing these delicacies is simple, but you need special molds for baking “shells”.
My family has an old mold for horishky that has been passed down from my great-grandmother.
These homemade cookies are very nostalgic and remind me of the times I was entrusted with the important task of filling the shells with condensed milk.
I loved condensed milk as a child and I didn’t care much for the dough.
Try these cookies right away with the recipe below!
Viktoriia
Prep Time 15 minutes mins
Cook Time 1 hour hr
Resting time 30 minutes mins
Total Time 1 hour hr 45 minutes mins
Ingredients
- 9 oz sugar (250g)
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 7 oz butter (200g)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 21 oz wheat flour (600g)
- 17.5 oz condensed milk, boiled (500g)
Instructions
In a deep bowl, mix sugar, salt and eggs until a hom*ogeneous consistency. Add melted butter to the egg mixture and continue to mix with a whisk until smooth.
9 oz sugar, ½ tsp salt, 2 eggs, 7 oz butter
Activate baking soda with vinegar and add it to the bowl with the dough. Then add flour in small portions to the bowl and knead the dough. Knead the dough thoroughly so that there are no lumps. The dough should be soft, elastic and not stick to your hands. Let it rest for 30 minutes.
½ tsp baking soda, 1 tsp vinegar, 21 oz wheat flour
Next, form small balls. Put the dough balls in a well-heated form. Bake on each side for 3-4 minutes on medium heat. During baking, it is necessary to open the form, checking that the nuts do not burn. The halves should be golden, not pale and not overcooked.
The finished pastry should be taken out of the mold and allowed to cool. Then carefully break off the excess edges that protruded beyond the edges of the form.
Add boiled condensed milk into the prepared halves and asseble nuts.
17.5 oz condensed milk, boiled
Easy and simple. Enjoy!
Notes
I like to put a piece of roasted nut inside (peanuts, almonds, walnuts, etc.). It adds more crunchiness.
For more Ukrainian food ideas, check these out:
- 9 Delicious Ukrainian Cake Recipes
- 8 Ukrainian Easter Food Ideas
- 11 Typical Ukrainian Breakfast Dishes
