Fruit & Nut Cookies

This is a recipe that has been on my to-make list for a very long time. I watched Ina Garten make them on her Barefoot Contessa show and when Priya (@ Akshayapaatram) made them egg-less and vegan on her blog, I had to absolutely had to make them. I even bought all the ingredients, but couldn’t find the much needed time to make them.

As the old saying goes, it’s better late than never, so this past weekend, I finally MADE these yummy cookies. I followed the original recipe to the T, I’m giving the same recipe here.

Adapted from Ina Garten’s Recipe.
Ingredients:

Dried fruit – 2 – 2 ½ cups (I used a combination of raisins, dried cherries/pineapple/papaya/prunes/apricots/figs & cashews)

Honey – 1tbsp
Dry Sherry – 2tbsp
Lemon juice – 2tbsp, freshly squeezed
Salt – pinch
All-purpose flour – 2 2/3 cups
Sugar – ½ cup
Light brown sugar – 1/3 cup
Butter – 2 sticks, unsalted and @ room temperature (I leave it out the night before)
Egg – 1 extra large
Ground cloves – ½ tsp

Method:

• Add honey, sherry, salt & lemon juice to dried fruit and nuts; cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit overnight at room temperature.
  
• Cream butter along with both sugars, ground cloves with hand mixer on medium speed, for about 3 minutes.
  
• Add egg and mix until incorporated.
  
• Slowly add the flour and ¼ tsp salt and mix until just combined; do not overmix.
  
• Add the fruits and nuts, along with any liquid in the bowl.
  
• Divide the dough in half and place each half on a parchment paper. This dough is very easy to work with and the recipe makes about 5-dozen cookies, so if you want to divide it into more than 2 logs for future use, go ahead and make 4 smaller logs. Roll each log in the parchment and refrigerate for 2 hours. Place all the logs that are not being used right away in a Ziploc bag and stow in the freezer (right now I’ve 3 logs waiting to be used).
  
• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cut the log into ½” thick slices. Place them on a ungreased cookie pa ½” apart. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly golden. My cookies were ready in 16-17 minutes, but the bottoms were slightly browned, so keep checking after 15 minutes.

These are sooooo good, buttery with the sweet and tangy bite from the dried fruit. I think I like them better than Karachi bakery fruit cookies. Thanks Priya for making me try these, they are worth every minute of the wait.


These cookies go to Mansi @ Fun & Food Blog for her Sugar High Fridays-Fruit & Nut event.