Servings: 3 dozen serving(s)
Prep time: 15 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 32 minutes
You can never have too many recipes for hermit cookies
One evening while freezing in the stands at our sons’ football game a friend and I got talking about cooking. And then we got talking about molasses which is how this five-star recipe made it into my hands.
It seems that everyone has a favourite molasses recipe and as Janel described the chewiness of these hermit cookies, and the orange glaze that gets drizzled over top, I suspected they’d become a favourite of mine too.
Janel is a meticulous curator of recipes and has a recipe cataloging system I can only dream of. I don’t know about you but my recipe “system” consists of recipe cards and printed out pages piled in the middle of the dining room table, torn-out pages from magazines stuffed in other books, folded down page corners in cookbooks and comments scribbled alongside recipes.
But back to Janel, she was able to pluck this recipe out of her archives. It’s from America’s Test Kitchen, Holiday Cookies (2010).
Chewy Hermit Cookies with an Orange Glaze
Makes about 3 dozen
Cookies:
- 2 cups flour
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- ½ tsp. salt
- 1 cup raisins or currants
- 2 Tbsp. crystalized ginger (optional)
- ½ cup butter
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- ¼ tsp. allspice
- ¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
- ½ cup Crosby’s Fancy Molasses
- 2 eggs
Glaze:
- 1 ½ Tbsp. orange juice whisked with ¾ cup icing sugar
Instructions:
- Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl.
- Toss raisins and candied ginger in a food processor and whiz until finely chopped. (Don’t worry if they end up in one big gob.)
- Melt butter in a saucepan and add spices, stirring until fragrant.
- Add raisin mixture to the butter mixture and mash with a wooden spoon until well combined.
- Add brown sugar, molasses and eggs and stir until well combined.
- Fold in flour mixture then refrigerate until firm (an hour or so).
- Scrape dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide evenly into four pieces.
- Roll each piece into a 10-inch log and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. You’ll likely only be able to fit two or three on a baking sheet at a time. They’ll spread during cooking and you don’t want them to touch.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes, watching closely during the last few minutes of baking so the edges don’t brown.
- When cool drizzle with glaze and cut on the diagonal into bars.
We have oodles more hermit recipes…
One more thing…
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I have made there Soft Hermit cookies my daughter took them to work–guess what I got 8 requests for your recipe .They are so good with coffee I take them with me whem going out for coffee and don’t bother buying any. Thank you so much.
Hi Ann, What a great message! I always love to hear when people enjoy a recipe. I’ll be sure to share this with my friend Janelle, who gave me the recipe.
Hi Bridget!
Thanks for this great recipe. I will definitely try this.
Hi Abby, I hope you enjoy them. They’re in my top 10 favourite cookies of all time.
I’m going to try these, they sound good. I’vebeen looking for a recipe similar to the “FruitBars” from Dudley’s Bakeries in the San Diego area.(I’m no the only one looking for a recipe similar to theirs!)
Hi Ellen, I hope that this recipe ends up being just what you’re looking for. For me it was the citrus drizzle that put them over the top.