anyone have a killer recipe other than ATK or KAF?
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Have made these a couple of times. @rstuart has as well. VERY good!
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here is Ina’s hermit bar recipe, as well as the Hermit cookie thread
both look a bit like Shirleys I used to get in NH and Vt a few decades back. And better than my last attempt. Garten has no nutmeg in her recipe. I’d change that. Hadn’t thought of booze, prolly bourbon for me.
Thanks,
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This is my favorite one. I bump up the crystalized ginger and really process it and the raisins down to a paste, to give the cookies a lot of chew. Also increase the spices a bit – for me ATK always shoots way too low there. What about it do you not like?
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low spice, like you. I think I doubled the recipe spices last time.
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ATK must be staffed by a bunch of supertasters. Every single time: No, that 1/8 tsp of cinnamon is absolutely not going to flavor this entire batch of whatever! Regardless, the texture of those cookies is – for me – spot on. And as someone who doesn’t really love big chunks of raisin, for me grinding them up is genius.
I must have a different ATK hermit recipe. There’s no crystallized ginger. Cinn is at 1/2t, still too little.
At that number, it wasn’t a NE’er that wrote the recipe. No buttamilk, no walnuts. Shame!
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Here’s the ATK recipe I’ve used: https://archive.ph/LrNIc
I don’t know whether or not buttermilk is commonly included, but walnuts..? What part of NE are you from? I don’t recall ever seeing walnuts in a hermit (Boston area) but 
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I’ve seen walnuts in Canadian Hermits.
No molasses? To me that’s always been essential for what makes a Hermit a Hermit.
BTW just looked at the Ina Garten recipe you linked to upthread; that looks amazing. Plenty of spice, including crystalized ginger. Might try that one soon with the ATK grinding up the fruit technique.
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Most I have eaten contain molasses. I haven’t made the Best of Bridge recipe yet.
Best of Bridge is a classic go-to cookbook for traditional Canadian home cooking in many Canadian kitchens.
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Just opened the previous thread and saw that I’d already posted Ina’s spicy hermit recipe back then! Still using and enjoying it - to great acclaim and in high demand…..inspired to make a batch tomorrow!
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Shirleys from NH. a number of decades ago. Your link is broken coz archive is (apparently) under DDoS attack.
Working fine on this end.
ah ha! Firefox. Opens in Safari
this is another version I have credited to ATK as well.
8 tablespoons butter, melted & cooled
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg,
1 yolk
1/2 cup molasses
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground mace
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (less if using salted butter)
1 cup raisins
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. America’s test kitchen hint “Most hermit recipes involve creaming the butter, but this produced dry, biscuit-y cookies. Melting the butter instead delivered a chewier, moister cookie. We took this one step further by cooking the butter in a saucepan until very light brown and fragrant, which added a nutty flavor to the hermits”. Add the spices to the butter for the light cooking to bloom their flavor. “This avoids a dusty texture from too much ground spice.” If you have any questions, better to undercook than overcook the butter. Remove from heat and add sugar, stir. Let cool.
Beat eggs and molasses into your butter and spice mix,. In a separate bowl, stir together all dry ingredients. Stir dry ingredients into molasses mixture. Stir in raisins and nuts.
Line baking sheet with parchment paper (or a silpat). Divide dough into 2 sections and form two logs of about 14Ă—2 inches. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes. Slice each log at an angle about 2 inches thick.
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made these last night with some substitutions.
Kefir for the egg yolk, 2T. I prefer buttermilk, alas.
Under measured the brown sugar by a T, but I shouldn’t have.
Hydrated 1/2c raisins and 1/2c chopped dates with 2T bourbon.
1t cinn. Next time, I think 2t. Forgot to bloom the spices in the butter, Darn the Luck ! ! !
Think next time I’ll double all the spices except the mace.
Added 1T fresh orange zest, coz I had just peeled one.
Added 2T of DIY crystal ginger, chopped.
They din’t crack like Shirlys did. They’re a teense dry.
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