Today I'm going to appreciate the simplicity of cookies.
There has been too much tragedy these last few weeks around the world - feelings of sadness and anger that just seem to dominate the news. I could drown you in whole political dialogue - but truthfully, you can get that anywhere. What I do know that I'm thankful for everything in my life and I'm going to celebrate what I have and try my best to enjoy each day to the fullest.
And today that means cookies.
Actually, I had the choice of celebrating National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day or National Spicy Hermit Cookie Day.
Yeah...it really wasn't much of a choice.
So the Spicy Hermit Cookie is apparently an upgrade from plain cookies with the addition of raisins, nuts and spices. The recipe seems to stem from the New England area - but that may be due just to the publication of such recipes in the general Massachusetts vicinity. The basic recipe for spice cookies seems to have been around for quite some time - just not so specifically defined until the 1800s. More digging also revealed that the name hermit cookies could be tied to how long they can be stored (which was probably more of a big deal back in the day before such awesome inventions as plastic storage containers). I was able to find recipes for hermit cookies with dates, without dates, as drop-cookies and as bars. I decided to keep it simple and make cookies with no dates (I also couldn't find dates in the bulk bin at my local grocery store, and knowing I wasn't going to use them again any time soon, I opted for no dates as a cost-saving measure).
Word of warning - you will need room temperature butter and eggs, so take those out of the fridge early. Everything else you probably already have around the house.
So here we go....
Spicy Hermit Cookie
Ingredients:Dry ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice (if you don't have allspice, mix 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 nutmeg, 1/4 ground cloves in a small bowl and take the 1/4 teaspoon from there)
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Mix-ins:
1 cup raisins (I used golden)
1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup dates, pitted and coarsely chopped (optional)
Everything else:
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (205 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Glaze: (optional)
1/2 cup (55 grams) powdered sugar (sifted)
2 tablespoons milk
Let's make cookies!
Preheat oven to 350 degrees FahrenheitIn one bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Set aside.
Now...if you're like me, and you don't bake a lot, you probably have some pretty dead spices laying around the house (which, by the way, never store your spices over the stove or too close to a heat source - that will take away their potency much faster than storing them in a cool, dark pantry). If your spices are more than one year old (or if you can't remember when you bought them at all), it's time for some new ones. But good news! You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars to restock your supply. Just take a stroll down your international food aisle and look for the small bags that are about $1.00 each. There's a better chance these spices are fresher than what's in your cupboard and much more cost effective than buying a huge bottle that you'll never get through. Once you use what you need for your recipe, just store them in airtight bags with the label and mark the date you opened them so you'll know how long you've had them. Toss them in the pantry and they're ready for the next use - or, are easy to toss if you don't pull them out again until next year.
Onwards...
In a separate bowl, mix together the raisins, walnuts and dates (if using). Set aside.
If you don't feel like chopping the walnuts, just throw 'em in an airtight bag and smash with a meat tenderizer. Leave them a little bulky, but it's faster than trying to negotiate sneaky walnuts on a cutting board with a sharp knife in your hand.
See...I'm going to get the hang of this baking thing yet.
In third bowl, beat together the butter and sugar (I used a hand mixer with the beater attachments – you could just as easily use a stand mixer with the paddle attachment). Stir in the eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla extract, scraping down the sides of the bowl from time to time.
Add in the flour mixture a little at a time – blending well before adding more. Once all the dry ingredients are incorporated into the dough, turn off the mixer. Using a spoons, stir in the contents of the raisin/nut/date bowl (the dough was easy enough to work with that you don’t need the mixer – plus you don’t want to pulverize the texture ingredients of the dough).
On a cookie sheet that is either well-buttered, lined with parchment paper or a silicon mat, drop a tablespoon of dough every two inches or so apart.
Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes (depending on the size of your drops). If your cookies still look a little underdone after 12 minutes, just let them sit on the sheet outside the oven for a few more minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.
If glazing, you can either wait for them to start to cool or glaze right away (I chose to glaze right away). Let the glaze dry before storing. Store at room temperature in airtight containers or freeze.
The Spicy Hermit Cookie remind me of oatmeal raisin cookies without the oatmeal. They're very chewy, and I'll admit that I liked them with the icing more than without. But they were easy to make and didn't require a whole lot of time or energy (so if your kid suddenly springs the "I need to bring cookies for tomorrow's bake sale" on you at 8 o'clock at night, you could easily whip up a batch of these and have them ready to go well before the late night TV shows are on.
The world is a mess. It has been for a while, and sadly I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. The best you can do is make the most of every day you have; be thankful you wake up each morning and can crawl into bed each night. Love the ones in your life as much as you can and find joy in the little things.
Even if the little things are just a cookie and a glass of milk.
Thanks to The Joy of Baking for their Spicy Hermit Cookie recipe. You can find the original link HERE
