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Hermits (T soda T boiling water C)
1 1/2 C light brown sugar. 3/4 C shortening. 3 well beaten eggs. 1 t cinnamon. 1/4 t salt. 1 t soda 2 T boiling water 1 C raisins 1 C nutmeats 2 C flour Cover raisins with water and bring to boil, then drain. Cream sugar and shortening, add beaten eggs. Dissolve soda in boiling water. Add raisins, cinnamon, salt and nut meats (broken in pieces). Lastly the flour. Drop from teaspoon on greased pans.
Mrs. C. R. Galloway. 14 C flour 1/3 t salt
The ingredient list on this page has come apart in transcription: the method calls for sugar, shortening, eggs and cinnamon that never appear in the list, and the flour is given twice in contradictory amounts. What follows sorts out what can be stated with confidence and flags what cannot.
- The list is incompleteSugar, shortening, eggs and cinnamon are all directed in the method but have no quantities anywhere on the page. Comparable hermit recipes of the same era run about 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup shortening, 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon cinnamon, but those figures are inferred from similar recipes, not from this one.
- "14 C flour"This cannot be taken literally; it is a garbled fraction, most likely 1/4 or 1 1/4 cup, or a stray duplicate of the flour line. Two cups is the plausible working amount for a batch of this size.
- NutmeatsPeriod shorthand for shelled nut kernels; the variety is not specified here. The recipe directs that they be broken in pieces rather than chopped fine.
- Soda in boiling waterDissolving the soda in the two tablespoons of boiling water before it meets the batter was common in recipes of this period and helps distribute it evenly. The recipe's order puts it in before the flour, which goes in last.
- Plumping the raisinsCovering the raisins with water, bringing to a boil and draining softens them so they do not pull moisture out of the dough. Drain them thoroughly and let them cool before they go in, or the shortening will melt.
- No oven temperatureNone is given, as was normal in a book written for cooks who judged by hand. Drop cookies of this type bake at 350–375F for 10 to 12 minutes, until set at the edges and still soft in the centre.
- YieldDropped from a teaspoon, a batch on this scale gives roughly three dozen small cookies. Hermits firm up and improve after a day in a tin.
Hermits are a New England spice cookie, and the name is generally traced to their keeping quality — a cookie that survives a long spell shut away in a jar, or in a sailor's or traveller's pocket. The formula is a plain drop cookie carrying raisins, nuts and cinnamon, all pantry goods that a household kept year-round: cheap, sturdy enough to travel to a supper or a bazaar, and forgiving of the baker's own judgment about the oven. That last point cuts both ways here. Quantities were often abbreviated to the point of collapse, and the printer's fractions did the rest of the damage.