Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Dry Fruit Cookies

One of my friends brought a box of dates home when she visited me a month back. I already had a big bag of dates in the refrigerator. So, I have been trying to use up dates as much as I can. I tried date cake which came out very good, and when I was watching food network one day and Ina Garten made these cookies, I thought why not modify this recipe and use dates in it. I halved the main ingredients mostly and added my own touches. Here it is:



Ingredients
* 1/4 pound pitted dates. Chopped coarsely.
* 2 Ounces raisins - I used black ones, you can use golden or whatever you have on hand. If you are using jumbo raisins, chop them coarsely.
* 2 ounces sweetened dried cranberries.
* 1 ounces Tutti fruity bits
* 1 tablespoon honey
* 2 tablespoons red wine
* 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
* 3 ounces pecans chopped coarsely.
* a pinch salt
* 1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
* 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
* 1/4 cup superfine sugar
* 1/4 cup light brown sugar loosely packed
* 1/2 TBSP of ground flax seed or flax seed meal mixed with 1 TBSP + 1 tsp of warm water (See update below)
* 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour



I followed the method given in the original recipe and baked the cookies. I got 36 cookies for the above mentioned ingredients and the cookies tasted delicious. I baked them for about 14 minutes. You can see in the picture that they are a little dark on the bottom. I didn't use the parchment paper and if I had, it would've been nice golden brown. Next time, I probably will try cashews or almonds for the nuts part of the recipe to get a different variety, but all in all a great recipe.

Update: I made these for my kid's birthday party and instead of using flax seed as egg replacer, I used 1 TBSP of corn starch with dry mix and added 1 TBSP of water to the creamed butter sugar mixture. They came out very good without the nutty smell of flax seeds. I have made these with cashews and everyone loved them.

Happy Baking!! Pin It

2 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Can you provide me with the substitute for red wine, we do not use wine in cooking..

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  2. You could use grape or apple juice instead. But keep the container in the refrigerator overnight to soak. And then bring it back to room temperature and proceed. Since wine can stay outside, there was no need for that in the original recipe.

    ReplyDelete

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