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Post by vaporvac on Nov 18, 2015 19:54:07 GMT -5
Do any of you have food memories that you constantly search to replicate? I have many, one of which is my Mom's Hermit bars. I've searched through my trove of new vintage and antique cookbooks to no avail. I've spent countless hours on the web.... NTS: it's NOT all on the web! Don't get me wrong. There are hundred of recipes for Hermit bars and cookies, just not THE recipe. My Mom's had the original rye flour instead of wheat and also coffee, if I remember correctly. I thought I was in luck with the following recipe as it called for whole wheat flour, but it wasn't even close. However, It was DELICIOUS so I'm posting the recipe (as soon as I get to another computer that won't erase my entire post as just happened!!!) These taste more like a gingerbread, especially Hodgson Mills box mix, if you've ever had that. Coming soon.... Harwich Hermits
Pre-heat oven to 350
2 eggs, well-beaten 1/3c brown sugar (I used 1/4c) 8oz vanilla low-fat yogurt (I used plain homemade thick) 1/3c molasses 13/4c whole wheat pastry flour (I use 1c wwpastry flour and 3/4c rye which I suggest) 1tsp each: baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon 1/2tsp ground cloves 1/4tsp nutmeg 2-4Tblspoons milk, if needed 2/3c raisins 1/3c finely chopped walnuts
Stir the brown sugar with the eggs until dissolved. Add the yogurt and molasses, stirring until completely combined. Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl. Add wet ingredients gradually,stirring vigorously until well blended. Add milk if batter seems too dense. Fold in raisins and nuts.
Pour into an oiled 9x9 (I used 8x11) pan and bake for 25-30 minuts until a knife inserted in center is clean and the top is golden. Allow to cool and cut in squares, or test immediately and eat 1/8 of it before you even realize it.
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Post by vaporvac on Nov 18, 2015 20:09:33 GMT -5
I don't know why this crazy computer underlined the above. Not that it matters.
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Post by karitx on Nov 18, 2015 21:57:35 GMT -5
Hermits are one of those things I have always heard of, but I don't think I've ever tried them! I will look through my old books and see if I can find one that uses rye flour. Maybe we can find The One!
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Post by vaporvac on Nov 18, 2015 23:39:58 GMT -5
They're a VERY old-fashioned Eastern seaboard type thing. I think my Mom's original recipe came from some old-timey colonial recipe book. there are a few online with coffee, but I haven't tried them yet. Modern tastes may not find them thrilling enough, but I love molasses anything and it's should be more subltle that gingerbread. You're seet to help me on my quest. It's out there somewhere.
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Post by wizardoftrance on Nov 19, 2015 0:02:50 GMT -5
They are kind of like cookie meets brownie. I remember them from childhood. YUM
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Post by chipperhiker on Nov 19, 2015 13:13:07 GMT -5
Well, last night I went through all of my cookbooks here in NY for you, too, vaporvac. I was hopeful about some of my old local ones (like the kind published by local churches, etc.), but sadly, no hermits with rye four. I have a few more oldies back in RI, but it'll be a bit before I'm there again. I have a Boston Cooking School (became Fannie Farmer in later days) from the 40s back there that might be worth a shot.
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Post by mach12 on Nov 20, 2015 2:35:44 GMT -5
Chipperhiker - I looked in my 1938 Boston School of Cooking and the Hermit recipe in it doesn't use rye flour. I'd certainly still check yours though since it may well have updated recipes or variations. No rye flour recipes in the Fannie Farmer cookbook, though that one does have a couple of variations including one that uses coffee.
Vaporvac, I have hundreds of cookbooks and many of them are quite old. When we started putting down the hardwood floors we moved all of the bookshelves into the guest bedroom and I have to move some stuff around. I was able to get to about 20 from the 1880's through about 1905 and found Hermit recipes but so far none using rye flour. I should be able to do some more looking tomorrow.
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Post by cinnabar on Nov 20, 2015 9:26:05 GMT -5
Found 2 in the Fannie Farmer(1979 ed) Neither have rye or coffee in them. The 1929 Boston Cooking school had one, but again not with the secret ingredients you remember. The rye flour is easy to sub in for wheat to your taste. Rye is used a lot in Scandinavian cooking, Swedish and Finnish notably. There are Swedish Rye cookie recipes out there maybe one is close. The coffee additions were not always written down ..took me many tries to get Grandma's chocolate cookies right until I added the coffee to them and the frosting both. cinnabar
HOLD THE PHONE ! Found one in the Good House Keeping 1944. Molasses Hermits. no rye , but it has coffee! There is a basic hermit and mincemeat hermit too.
400 degrees 10-12 min, oiled cookie pan
1/2 cup shortening 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup molasses 1 beaten egg 1 cup raisins chopped
3/4 cup walnuts chopped 1 3/4 cup flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp mixed cake spice nutmeg and cinnamon(this is a war time recipe so there are shortcuts) 1/4 cup cold coffee beverage or milk.
These are drop cookies, but you could make them bars. Could be one to try.
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Post by Chuckie on Nov 20, 2015 12:10:07 GMT -5
Do any of you have food memories that you constantly search to replicate? I have many, one of which is my Mom's Hermit bars. I've searched through my trove of new vintage and antique cookbooks to no avail.
I have a Mrs. Cook's book from the 1800's, that even has a section on fireless cooking in the back of it! No luck, nor with Monkey's Lutheran cookbook & a bunch of other old ones from the 20's etc. I bought her a (reprint) copy of the Betty Crocker Cooky Book my Mother had when I was a child (my Mom's pages stuck together from spills! LOL) It was published originally in 1963. Monkey asked what I was looking for, I said the name, she said "oh, it's in that Betty Crocker Cooky book, I saw them there!"
Alas, no rye flower in this one either, but Monkey said when she was baking bread for market, if she wanted the rye flavor, she just subbed it in 1/2 to 1/2 with white.
At least you get some of the history on the Hermits--thank GOODNESS it was the best cookie of that decade!! Each decade has a "best cookie" and also a short 'bio' about it like this. This one sounds like same recipe(s) y'all have found, but I found the little history 'blurb' of them 'interesting'...
CHEERS! Chuckie
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Post by vaporvac on Nov 20, 2015 13:49:31 GMT -5
You guys are the BEST!!!! It's kind of fun having a mission, though, I find. Those two recipes sound really good and I'll try them both this week. (They have a sort of Thanksgiving autumnal feel.) It's an interesting note, cinnabar, about the coffee not being written down. I had completely forgotten about it until I read some recipes including it, then the light bulb of memory went off. Funny how that works. I've also read recipes that soak the raisins in the coffee to plump them instead of adding it to the liquids. I somehow recall this, as well. the shortening vs. butter is probably a more authentic ingredient, as well. I will try substituting in the Rye as I did with the recipe I posted. (DELISH and easy by the way. Try it.) I just figured, given the rarity of it as a Hermit ingredient, if I found one that included both coffee AND rye, I'd know it was THE one. They are a very early recipe....I so wonder from where my Mom got hers. Probably a newspaper clipping or from a friend when we lived out East. I think the bars predated the cookies, but they may have developed at the same time. WOT's description of their texture is spot on: cookie meets brownie! I like it. Thanks all for trying to track this down for me and taking the time to post results. I found her Jewish apple cake, Araby spice cake and Cheesecake. Hopefully, I can cross this one off the list soon.
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Post by chipperhiker on Nov 20, 2015 19:07:52 GMT -5
I found a couple recipes with coffee, if you want them, vaporvac. I was just looking for the rye flour.
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Post by karitx on Nov 20, 2015 20:10:38 GMT -5
I haven't had any luck so far looking for the combo of coffee and rye, but I do know that I need to try hermits now. Probably several different recipes so I can know which one The One for me.
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Post by nana on Nov 20, 2015 21:18:15 GMT -5
If your mom was anything like mine, how do you know that rye flour wasn't just something she subbed in on her own and it wasn't part of any original recipe? Whenever you asked my mom for a recipe she'd tell you things like "2 cups of flour, but I always put in 2 1/2. 2 tsp baking soda, but I only put one." The whole thing would be like that. Whatever was written down was merely a jumping off point for her. God, I miss her!
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Post by vaporvac on Dec 7, 2015 0:46:44 GMT -5
After MUCH more research I finally found an all rye hermit! from 1918 cookbook from berkely, ca where my parents lived while my dad went to school. I'm going to try it and report back. No coffee in it, but that may have been me "mis-remembering" or perhaps trying other recipes. I'll continue on my quest, but these look really good.
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Post by pooka on Dec 7, 2015 12:05:02 GMT -5
I don't have the vast collections of old cookbooks that some of you may, but I looked in one that I picked up a while ago. It's titled "The Brandywine Cook 1935". It was printed by the Parent-Teacher Association, Mt. Pleasant School Community, Wilmington, Del. It has a recipe listed under "Molasses Cakes & Cookies". They call these "Soft Hermits (Drop Cookies)". 1/2 cup butter 2 eggs 1/2 cup water 1 teasp. soda dissolved in water 1 teasp. cinnamon 1/2 teasp. nutmeg 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup molasses 2 cups flour 1 teasp. cloves 2 cups raisins Bake in oven at 400 degrees. Makes about 6 dozen by Mrs. H. B. Ferguson. There's no coffee or rye, but as some of you suggest, variations may be regional or family thing based on what was available or traditional. The Answer.com says the drop cookies & bars are basically the same, but the dough for bars is made a bit dryer. It also says "some versions use coffee as the liquid." If these have been around as long as Chuckies cookbook says 1880-1890, there's bound to be countless versions. I'd say find a few recipes that sound good & substitute coffee for the water & rye for some or all of the flour & see what you can come up with. In looking around I even found a corn meal hermits from 1917. Attachments:
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Post by pooka on Dec 7, 2015 13:56:24 GMT -5
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Post by vaporvac on Dec 7, 2015 15:19:13 GMT -5
Thanks pooka. What is the source of the cornmeal recipe? I'm sure the rye was a variation, but it was typed in my mom's "little black book". These bars go way back, and were probably adjusted for local availability and probably had changed by the time the real push with cookbooks came along in the late 1800s. Rye was the most common grain next to wheat on the eastern seaboard in the early days so I imagine early recipes used it. It's definitely an interesting history full of hearsay, opinion and lore! I can't wait to make them, but will have to wait on some house projects that take precedence.
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Post by pooka on Dec 8, 2015 10:05:47 GMT -5
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Post by pooka on Dec 9, 2015 3:29:53 GMT -5
Not to divert from the topic, but in further investigation, Barbara Swell, the author of the book I mentioned above has a number of titles that sound like they are worth checking into further. She also has a blog that may be of interest too. She teaches classes in her homespun kind of cooking as well. It seems most of her books are more like booklets of less than eighty pages & all but two can be had for $5.95. The other two go for $12.95. Her titles include; 1 - Secrets of the Great Old-Timey Cooks: Historic Recipes, Lore & Wisdom - Mar 1, 20012 - Mama's in the Kitchen: Weird & Wonderful Home Cooking 1900-1950 - Jul 15, 20023 - The Lost Art of Pie Making Made Easy Apr 1, 20044 - The First American Cookie Lady (mentioned above) Aug 1, 20055 - Take Two & Butter 'Em While They're Hot: Heirloom Recipes & Kitchen Wisdom - Jan 15, 20086 - Children at the Hearth: 19th Century Cooking, Manners & Games - Jan 15, 20087 - Log Cabin Cooking: Pioneer Recipes & Food Lore - Jan 15, 20088 - A Garden Supper Tonight: A year of farm-fresh recipes from a vintage kitchen - Jul 17, 20099 - Aunt Barb’s Bread Book 10 - Picnic Time I went to check out her blog, & part way down the page on June 12, 2014 she posts regrets on not being able to buy a cheap working 1953 Chambers model 90C at a yard sale. She would have to move it within an hour on a Saturday. Here's a link to her blog. Log Cabin Cooking
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Post by vaporvac on Dec 9, 2015 13:23:30 GMT -5
As if the cookbooks weren't enough, Pooka, now I have another blog to read! Geez, I'm trying to get stuff done over here! Seriously, thanks for the links....I love this stuff.
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Post by vaporvac on Dec 10, 2015 18:37:43 GMT -5
Update: OK. due to user error measuring glitches and temp quality control, I can't say the following is THE recipe, but it is super delicious and has possibilities. I will make it again ensuring I'm using 1/2 cup measurements instead of 1/3! I need to replace some burnt out light bulbs over here! Besides these glitches I followed this recipe closely, except my raisins were dry so I soaked them in concentrated coffee after chopping them. I could also lower the oven temp even more in my convection oven or cook them in an enclosed pan instead of a baking sheet. I liked the crispy sides, but my mom's were a bit thicker and not so crunchy. Still, this is an outstanding recipe with a Hermit feel. i had to stop my self from taste-testing the entire batch.
Hermits: set oven to 300-325 deg.
3/4C shortening 1 1/2C brown sugar 2 eggs 1/2c oatmeal 1 C chopped raisins 1/2C chopped nut meats
2 cups rye flour 1/2C cornstarch 1/2tsp ground cloves 1 tsp. cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1/2tsp soda 1 tsp 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 for about 25 mine until set in center. Do not overbake.. A slow oven is needed for hermits.(300-325) Makes 4 dozen.
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