Holiday hermits

I finally got the last of my holiday care packages sent out last week. I just got too busy over the holidays with moving, working and oh, everything to bake at least one thing to include with it. I had picked out a very classic recipe to make, which a form was displayed in Penzeys around Christmas: Hermit Bars.

As much as I adore new trendy stuff, the single orgin chocolate, mixing chipotle into chocolate chip cookies and espresso whatnot, there is something about the old-fashioned tried and true stuff that is just outstanding. And it seems to be going around- Rachel made just chocolate chip cookies this weekend- no pecans, raisins, bourbon, no ne plus ultra, just chocolate chip. And I had three.

I do confess, I did over bake this batch a wee bit as I was a bit leery about the underbaking instructions. But next time I am sticking exactly to the directions, because the bit that was underdone was quite yummy. A couple people who tried them remarked how they don't like raisins, but they liked these. When did raisins get such a bad rap? I used a great blend of three jumbo raisins, nice and plump.

This will definitely be a repeater for me every holiday season. It makes a huge batch of cookies and they keep pretty well. I did use all-purpose flour, and if you do - they recommend to increase the amount of water to 3/4 cup. And I may increase the amount of allspice and cinnamon. Hey, I'm a spicy girl.

The Very Best Hermit Bars Ever

Yield: about 8 1/2 dozen 1-inch cookies

For bars:

1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup molasses
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 large eggs
5 cups cake flour, divided use
1/3 cup water
2 cups raisins, packed

For glaze:
3 tablespoons milk
1 cup powdered sugar

Procedure:

1. Prepare bars: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 10-by-15-inch jelly roll pan.

2. In large mixing bowl, cream together sugar, shortening and butter, beating at medium speed until fluffy. Add molasses, salt, spices and baking soda. Mix 1 minute, then stop mixer and scrape down sides of bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add half of flour. Once it’s mixed in, add water, then other half of flour. When batter is mixed completely, add raisins and stir until combined. Spread batter in prepared pan.

3. Bake bars 18-20 minutes, until edges are light brown. They’ll puff up in oven and top will get shiny. As soon as you see this, pull pan from oven. The top will fall back down and interior of cookies will have an almost fudgy consistency. Remove hermit bars from oven and cool them in pan on rack before glazing.

4. Prepare glaze: In small bowl, stir together milk and powdered sugar until smooth; glaze will be quite thin. Use pastry brush to brush it on top of hermit bars before cutting bars.

Source: “The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion”