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Hermits
2 Cups Rye Flour 1/2 Cup Oatmeal Cup Cornstarch 3/4 Cup Shortening 11/2 Cups Brown Sugar 2 Eggs 1 Cup Chopped Raisins Cup Chopped Nut Meats Teaspoon Ground Cloves 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon Teaspoon Nutmeg Teaspoon Soda 2/21/2/21 1 Teaspoon Salt Cream the shortening and sugar well together; add the well beaten eggs, then the oatmeal, chopped raisins and nuts.
Mix and sift all dry ingredients, add to the first mixture. Mix well, then pat out on a floured board to about one-fourth inch in thickness, cut and bake. A slow oven is needed for Hermits.
A rolled, spiced drop-in-the-lunchbox cookie built on rye flour rather than wheat, which changes both handling and baking behaviour. A few of the quantities as printed are incomplete, so treat the list below as guidance rather than a straight conversion.
- A slow ovenBake at 300-325F. Hermits made with rye and a high proportion of sugar scorch on the bottom before the centre sets if pushed hotter. At 1/4 inch thick, expect 10-14 minutes, until the edges firm and the surface loses its wet shine.
- Incomplete amountsThe cornstarch, nut meats, cloves, nutmeg and soda are all listed without a fraction, and the cluster of figures before the salt is not readable as a measurement. Conventional practice for a batch this size would be about 1/2 cup cornstarch, 1/2 cup nuts, 1/2 teaspoon each of cloves and nutmeg, and 1 teaspoon soda, but these are reconstructions, not the original intent.
- Rye flour behaves differentlyRye forms only a weak gluten network, so the dough will be short and crumbly rather than elastic. Chilling it before rolling, flouring the board generously and working in batches all help; a warm rye dough tears instead of cutting cleanly.
- ShorteningHere this means lard or a solid vegetable shortening, not butter or oil.
- OatmealMost likely rolled oats, added whole to the creamed mixture as directed, though 'oatmeal' at this date can also mean ground or cut oats. Instant oats dissolve into the dough and cost the cookie its texture.
- The sodaThere is no sour milk or molasses here, so whatever acidity there is comes from the molasses in the brown sugar. Sift the soda thoroughly with the dry ingredients; an unmixed pocket leaves a soapy patch that is very noticeable against the spices.
- Chopping the raisinsWorth doing properly rather than skipping. Whole raisins tear a thin rye dough as it is rolled, and chopped fruit distributes the moisture through the cookie.
- YieldSeveral dozen cookies from a 2-inch cutter, depending on how thin they are rolled. They improve after a day in a tin.
Hermits are a New England cookie, appearing in printed collections from the later nineteenth century onward: a soft, dark, heavily spiced raisin cookie whose selling point was durability. The name is generally traced to the notion that, like a hermit, the cookie keeps well in solitude, though no origin is documented and other explanations circulate. The rye flour, oatmeal and cornstarch standing in for wheat here may suggest an era of wheat conservation, when substitute-flour recipes filled the baking chapters of household books, though the ingredients alone cannot fix the date.