Hermit Cookies are a wonderfully old fashioned cookie and this easy Spicy Hermit Cookie Recipe is spiced just right and packed with dried fruit and nuts. Truly the best ever.
What Are Hermit Cookies Made of?
Hermit cookies are a soft, spiced cookie filled with raisins, currents or dates, and nuts.
Hermit Cookie Ingredients
In my grandma’s kitchen, hermit cookies included raisins, dates and walnuts.
- Butter
- Brown Sugar: Gives the cookies a deep, caramel-like sweetness. Choose dark brown sugar for the deepest, rich color.
- Eggs
- Vanilla Extract: Enhances the flavor profile of the cookies.
- All-Purpose Flour
- Baking Soda: Helps the cookies rise and become fluffy.
- Cinnamon, Allspice, Nutmeg: These spices add warmth and depth.
- Raisins: Introduce a chewy texture and natural sweetness.
- Chopped Dates: I love including dates, which have a deep, butterscotch flavour and add moisture to the cookie.
- Coarsely Chopped Walnuts or Pecans: Provide a crunchy contrast to the chewy cookies.
Variations and Substitutions
Customize your hermit cookies:
- Shortening or lard instead of butter. The flavor won’t be the same, but hermits were often made with longer-shelf-life fats in the 1800s so that they’d last longer for sailors on long voyages.
- Different Nuts: Try almonds or hazelnuts instead of walnuts or pecans or leave the nuts out.
- Swap the Dried Fruit: Use dried cranberries, currants or apricots instead of raisins or dates.
- Spice it Up: Experiment with ginger or clove for a different spice profile.
How to Make Old Fashioned Hermit Cookies: An Easy Guide
This Hermit Cookies recipe brings a delightful mix of spices, fruits, and nuts together in a wonderfully chewy package.
Prep Steps
- Preheat and Prep: Begin by heating your oven to 350 F and getting your baking sheets ready, lined with parchment for non-stick baking.
Make the Hermit Cookie Dough
- Cream the Butter and Brown Sugar: In your standing mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. This step is crucial for texture.
- Add Eggs and Vanilla: Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla. This mixture should look pale and thick.
- Add Dry Ingredients: Turn the mixer down and carefully mix in your flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. You want the flour mixture evenly combined.
- Fruits and Nuts: Gently stir in your raisins, dates, and chopped nuts, evenly distributing them through the dough.
Bake the Hermit Cookies
- Shaping the Cookies: Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto your baking sheets, leaving space between each.
- Bake: Let them bake for 10-12 minutes. The edges should be set but the centers still soft.
Cool and Serve
- Cooling: Allow the cookies to cool slightly on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a wire rack.
- Serve and Enjoy: Once completely cool, these cookies are ready to be enjoyed!
Most Common Mistakes When Making Hermit Cookies
Here are the most frequent mix-ups to avoid when making Easy Old Fashioned Hermit Cookies:
- Using Light Brown Sugar: The cookies will still taste fine, but they’ll be very pale in comparison and will have a less rich flavor.
- Overmixing the Dough: Mixing the dough too much can lead to tough cookies, especially since they’re a lower-fat cookie. Mix just until the ingredients are combined.
How to Store Hermit Cookies
Keep Hermit Cookies in an airtight container for up to 10 days.
Because they are made with brown sugar, they actually attract moisture for a couple of days after baking.
Keep them stored separately from any cookies that are meant to be crisp, as this tender cookie will soften other cookies around them.
Can you Freeze Hermit Cookies?
Hermit cookies freeze beautifully. You can freeze baked cookies flat on a baking sheet first (to prevent the moist cookies sticking together) then transfer to freezer bags to store up to 3 months.
Thaw at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving.
You can alternatively freeze the unbaked dough.
This is the pro way I like to scoop and chill or freeze my cookie dough.
Hermit Cookies: A Closer Look
Hermit cookies are truly unique and have a special history that’s close to my heart. Let me answer a few questions that pop up a lot!
Are Hermit Cookies Healthy?
Hermit cookies are in fact on the healthy side. With half the quantity of butter in a typical cookie recipe, they are lighter than most.
Plus, they’re jam packed with raisins, dates and walnuts, which are all good for you.
As a dietitian, I would put them on par with a granola bar in terms of healthiness as a snack option.
Why Are They Called Hermit Cookies?
The speculation surrounding the name “Hermit Cookies” is that you can tuck them away and they last a really long time.
Perhaps this is why they gained popularity, because they kept well on long trips.
What do Hermit Cookies Taste Like?
Hermit cookies are warmly spiced, soft, filled with chewy textures and are utterly delicious.
But just because they are spiced, don’t compare them to a true spice cookie (which have heavier flavours of molasses, cloves and ginger).
The flavours here are subtle.
Hermits are sweetened with only brown sugar, which imparts an irresistible caramel taste.
What is the History of Hermit Cookies?
Hermit cookies are a very old New England classic recipe, that travelled up the coast to become a beloved recipe on Canada’s East coast as well.
My classic hermit cookie recipe is inspired by my grandmother’s old cookbook from the early 1900s but the recipe itself surely predates that.
Hermit Cookie Recipe FAQs
Just skimming through? Here are some quick answers to the commonly-asked questions about Easy Old Fashioned Hermit Cookies:
Yes, you can make these cookies with a hand mixer or with a mixing bowl and a spoon by hand, though it might require a bit more effort to cream the butter and sugar.
Easy Old Fashioned Hermit Cookies are meant to be chewy, thanks to the brown sugar and the moist ingredients like eggs and butter.
Absolutely, you can use dried cranberries, cherries, or apricots as a substitute for raisins and dates in these cookies.
While the combination of cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg is ideal, you can still make delicious cookies with just one or two of these spices.
Stored in an airtight container, cookie jar or tins, these Hermit Cookies can stay fresh for up to 10 days at room temperature.
Toasting the nuts is optional, but it enhances their flavor and adds an extra layer of crunch to the cookies.
Easy Spicy Hermit Cookies Recipe (Soft for DAYS!)
Video
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter room temperature
- 1 cup dark brown sugar packed
- 2 large eggs
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp allspice
- ⅛ tsp nutmeg
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 cup chopped dates
- 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- In a standing mixer on medium speed, cream together butter and brown sugar. Add eggs and beat until mixture is pale and thick – about 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla.
- Reduce mixer speed to low and beat in flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. Incorporate raisins, dates and nuts (depending on your mixer, you may have to do this part by hand with a wooden spoon).
- Drop cookies by tablespoonfuls onto a well-greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, about 2 inches apart (you will have to do batches). Bake 10-12 minutes, until edges are set but centres still appear moist. Cool on baking sheet 2 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Can a plant based margarine be substituted for the butter. I am dairy protein allergic.
Hi Terry, yes as long as it’s like a Becel or a vegan butter (some olive oil-based soft margarines or lower fat ones are not intended for baking).
My brother used to make hermit cookies that were soooo good but 30ish yrs later he can’t find the recipe when i asked him for it. Found this one so thought I’d give it a shot. Omg sooo good. I don’t remember what his tasted like only that i loved them so have no comparison. Though I doubled the spices and added 1/4tsp of cloves (not sure if that little added anything to the cookies though) and instead of 1c raisins i did 1.5c dried cherries (what my brother used to use). Thank you so much for this recipe. My man and I can’t stop eating them!!
These kcookies are identical to my moms recipe, there are great tasting cookies,getting ready to make more o f them
my Mom made these (her mother did as well). I grew up in the early 1940’s. One of my favorite things about Christmas. This recipe Mom used was the same as my grandmother did in the 1930;s or earlier. YUmmy
Hi Jennifer. Thank you for this wonderful recipe! Hermits were my Mom’s favourite cookie and I found your recipe about a year ago and started making them for her. She said they were so good that I could sell them for $2.50 a piece 🙂 My Mom died earlier this year from covid and I am making these cookies for the celebration of life event we are having in honour of her. Thanks for playing a part in my memories of my Mom. x
Donna, your message goes straight to my heart. Thanks so much for sharing with me. I’m sorry for the loss of your mom. Sending love.
These are truly a very tasty cookie but I only got 30 cookies instead of 4 dozen. Guess I was over generous in the tbsp. size. I would also like to have
the nutritional value included. Will definitely make again.
Thank you Cathy! Google “recipe nutrition analysis” – there are free websites that analyze recipes that you simply copy/paste ingredients lists and number of servings. 🙂
Since I discovered this recipe a year ago, I’ve made these cookies every month or so. They are perfect as is, I just make sure that I use the brown eggs, and organic dark brown sugar. I’ve tried it with normal brown sugar and white eggs and they just don’t taste as good.
Thank you so much!
Thank you, Flo, it brings me so much joy that my grandma’s recipe is being enjoyed!
You do realize that there is absolutely no difference between white eggs and brown eggs. Brown come from brown chickens, white from white chickens. Once you crack them open they are identical in every way. Much like people
I baked mine for 11 minutes in my perfectly calibrated oven. They turned out quite pale. Not like your pic. I didn’t have the allspice. Any idea?
Hi Barbara, I have two ovens and in my smaller one, things brown more because of the closer direct heat source as well as heat bouncing off of the closer oven walls. I also find less browning in gas vs. electric ovens. That quantity of allspice wouldn’t make much of a difference in the colour.
Hi Barbara, it was probably light brown sugar vs. dark brown sugar! Try dark brown sugar next time.
Oh my goodness, where has this cookie been all of my life?! Delicious. Don’t change a thing, perfect subtle flavor that embraces and compliments the dates, walnuts and raisins. Thank you so much….can’t promise these will make it to the Christmas cookie plates. Yum!
Changed nothing. They were perfect!
Added 1/4 cup flour,1/4 cup molasses, 1/2 cups chopped dried apricots, doubled cinnamin,added1/4 teaspoon ground cloves,added 2 tablespoons cider vinager…delicious cookie
Great, John! Sounds delicious.
Yes! These were too cake like and far too sweet. I like your molasses idea, and I’ll use 1/2 the sugar. Spices are nice though. I will do this again, just a little adapted. Isn’t that what baking is all about?
They are meant to be quite cakey, more like a soft muffin top than a chocolate chip cookie. Cutting back the sugar also makes them cakier (as the sugar increases spread). Maybe cut down on the dried fruit in them to make them less sweet.
John, Can you explain the cider vinegar addition to the cookie? How does it change the flavor or chemistry of the bake? Thanks!