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Hermits (No. 2)
1 1/2 cups sugar. 1/2 cup molasses. 1 cup butter. 1/2 cup milk. 3 eggs (not beaten) added separately 1 cup chopped raisins ½ cup currants ½ teaspoon nutmeg ½ teaspoon cloves ½ teaspoon cinnamon Five Roses flour to make medium stiff dough.
Drop from fork onto a pan and bake in moderate oven. If Five Roses flour is used, it does not need to be made as stiff as with ordinaryflour. 1 cup bran
This is one of two Hermit recipes printed in the book, and it reads as an abbreviated variant of the first — the ingredient list as set in type is incomplete, so treat it as a framework rather than a full formula.
- What is missingThere is no sugar, fat or leavening in the list, and no quantity of flour. As printed you would get a plain baked egg-and-fruit dough; a drop cookie of this kind would ordinarily need some sugar, fat and a leavener, but the recipe as set gives none, and the quantities are a matter of guesswork. Work from the companion Hermits recipe for proportions.
- The stray cup of bran"1 cup bran" is printed after the instructions rather than in the list, apparently a typesetting slip; it evidently belongs with the dry ingredients. Since the flour is not measured at all, the bran simply reduces the amount of flour needed to reach a medium stiff dough.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350-375°F. Watch them rather than a clock, and pull them while the centres still look slightly soft.
- Five Roses flourA Canadian household flour milled from hard spring wheat, stronger than much modern all-purpose. The note that the dough needs less stiffening is consistent with a higher-absorption flour: with supermarket all-purpose you will likely need a little more flour to reach the same body.
- Eggs not beaten, added separatelyThe recipe says only that the eggs go in whole and one at a time rather than beaten together; adding them singly lets each be worked in before the next.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, a small seedless grape, not fresh red or black currants. They are sold alongside raisins.
- Consistency"Medium stiff" means the dough holds a peak on the fork and drops reluctantly. If it slumps flat on the sheet, add flour a tablespoon at a time.
Hermits are a North American spice cookie associated with New England and the Maritimes, built on the same raisin-and-warm-spice line as soft gingerbread. The name is usually traced to their keeping quality — enough fat and spice to be stored away for weeks — but the story is traditional rather than documented. The Five Roses Cook Book was published by Lake of the Woods Milling Company as advertising for its flour, which is why the instruction here is not a weight of flour but a note that Five Roses needs less of it. The cup of bran is a period touch.