Hermits

When a recipe dates to the turn of the century (1906) and there is no electric oven temperature, and you have measurements like this "flour enough to stir stiff enough to drop from a spoon"...it is time to do recipe research.

I found an "Old Fashioned Hermit Cookies" recipe at www.thespruceeats.com. I compared it to the recipe in the MBCC, and it has nine ingredients that match the 1903 recipe, so I combined the best of each recipe to make these cookies happen. One of the quirks in the modern recipe that I like is a call for brewed coffee. Not much, but it does add a nice flavor twist. The original recipe calls for plain water. The other twist suggests adding chopped dates. But I opted for the original recipe option of raisins. 

I remember making hermits when my kids were little. They gobbled up these spicy treats as fast as I could bake them. It is not such a popular cookie, these days, but I do recall my grandmother including hermits in her annual holiday baking, making plenty because my dad, her son, loved them.

Because you might call these "vintage" cookies, I wanted to display them on my Fire King Jadeite plate. Don't they look delicious? Especially good warm from the oven with milk, of course! At least, that is my fond memory, from childhood, when I'd sit at the kitchen table with my grandmother and play endless games of dominoes, and enjoy cookies and milk and conversation. 

BTW, this recipe completes all recipes in the Cookies & Bars section of the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook, and is the first chapter I've completed in my goal of cooking through this fabulous cookbook. My grandmother always gave good advice: "When you have a choice, make cookies." Thanks, Gramma B! Love you and miss you, and look forward to a dominoes game in heaven with you, and milk and cookies. I'm betting God's Kitchen has the best cookies ever!



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