Hermit Cookie Recipe

 A soft spicy hand-cake cookie that is the perfect holiday gift as well as a treat for your dessert table. This soft chewy gingerbread cookie is bursting with spicy flavors of cinnamon, ginger and molasses !

 

 

Prep Time 30 mins

Cook Time 18 mins

Cuisine Italian

 Adapted from Dee Dine

Servings 32

 

Ingredients

• ½ cup molasses    
• ½ cup butter, shortening and apple sauce  
• ½ cup cane sugar (less)    
• ½ cup (brown sugar) (less)  
• 1 tsp baking soda  
• ½ cup hot strong coffee  
• 2 eggs    
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (or rolled oats)
  
• 2 cups whole wheat flour 
• ½ tsp salt   
• 2 tsp cinnamon  
• 1 tsp cloves    
• 1 tsp ginger    
• 1 cup raisins

Instructions

Prep

• Line a quarter cookie sheet with parchment.

   

  Stir together eggs
  

   

  Make coffee very strong, you'll need ½ cup. Add in the raisins to marinate in the coffee until ready to add to the mixture.

Mix the cookies

• Use a cake mixer or a hand-mixer to blend together the shortening, eggs and both sugars in a medium bowl. Stir in the molasses.
• In another larger bowl, add the two flours, soda, salt, and spices by stirring them through a fine sieve. Or, of course, you can use a sifter.

   

  Add the wet shortening mixture to the large flour bowl, and mix the batter until thoroughly combined.
• Drain the raisins, reserving the coffee in a measuring cup. Top off the cup of coffee until it reaches ½ cup. Add that ½ cup of coffee to the batter and mix again until thoroughly combined.

   

  Fold in the raisins, and store the batter, covered, in the refrigerator for  1 hour before baking.

   

  When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F.

Bake the cookies

• You can press the dough into 2 (8-inch) square pans and bake like a bar cookie, but the traditional way to make a hermit cookie is thus:

   

  Divide the batter into four portions.

   

  Hand form 4 logs that are roughly 10 inches long, 2 ½ inches wide, and flattish. I baked two logs at a time.
• To do this, set two logs at a time, side by side, on the parchment-lined quarter cookie sheet and bake the logs for 16-18 minutes at 350 F. The cookie log is done when a few cracks appear on top.

   

  Pull out the pan and let the cookie logs cool a minute or so, then slice at an angle, at 2-3 inches wide intervals. We got about 8 cookies per roll.
• We iced ours eventually, but we also kept some with no topping. Other traditions are to sprinkle sugar or cinnamon before baking.