Hermit Cookies And Stuff

American Dessert

HERMIT COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

¾ cup butter (1 more tablespoon later)
1¼ cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon clove
¼ teaspoon mace
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¾ cup raisins
1 tablespoon butter

SPECIAL UTENSILS

3 cookie sheets

Makes 96 (8 dozen) cookies. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add ¾ cup butter to large mixing bowl.  Use high setting on electric beater until butter becomes creamy. Add sugar. Use high setting until butter and sugar are thoroughly blended. Add eggs and milk. Use high setting on beater until ingredients are well blended. Add flour, baking, powder, cinnamon, clove, mace, and nutmeg to 2nd mixing bowl. Mix ingredients with whisk or fork. Gradually add flour/spice mix to mixing bowl with butter. Use medium setting on electric beater dough is well blended. Dice raisins. Add raisins. Blend in raisins with electric beater set on medium.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Rub cookie sheet with 1 tablespoon butter or spray with no-stick spray. Use a teaspoon to drop rounded balls 2″ apart onto cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes or until cookies start to brown. (Keep an eye on the cookies. Cooking times vary with the placement and the thickness of the cookie sheet and with the oven itself.)

TIDBITS

1) The name “hermit cookies” comes from the hermit crab and the hermits of Cinco Rios, Jamaica. These hermits loved cookies, as who does not? Anyway, these reclusive holy men noticed male hermit crabs carrying spicy cookies back to their homes. It was a simple matter to set up a trade where the monks received the cookies in return for painting hermit-crabs’ shells in festive colors. Every one knows that female hermit crabs go gaga for brightly colored shells. However, we still aren’t sure how the hermit crabs knew that the hermits liked spicy cookies nor where the crustaceans got these hermit cookies, but there you go.

Chef Paul