12 Days Of Cookies A Gourmet Cookie Extravaganza...Maida Heatters Chocolate Cookies With Gin Soaked Raisins

On the 8th Day of Christmas Cookies Glamah baked for me Maida Heatter's Chocolate Cookies with Gin-Soaked Raisins.If you have been keeping up with my posts until now you see I name every cookie at the point like I'm singing the 12 days of Christmas. But with this long title and the hour I'm typing this ,I will pass. Now we don't keep Gin in the house. But we did buy some when in the Bahamas to take advantage of the great duty free price and make our new favorite cocktail. I was intrigued by this recipe because it called for Gin soaked raisins. I can see soaking raisins in Rum , or even Whisky, but Gin! I even googled Gin soaked golden raisins and found out they are a legendary home cure for arthritis! Maida , who is one of the leading cookie experts in the world, knew what she was doing. This recipe was published in December 2000 and is described as crunchy on the outside with a rich gooey center. It's is a most unusual recipe asking for you to butter and flour your baking sheets, soak your raisins for at least 8 hours, uses only egg whites, and doesn't have any fat in the dough.I didn't have the pecans Maida called for, so I used walnuts in the same way, toasted and chopped and they worked wonderfully. I also used the only Cocoa I had which was Hershey's Special Dark. I was scared with this dough as it was a sticky, drying mass that you had to work quickly with. Imagine mixing dry ingredients with just a few egg whites ands nuts and raisins. The cookies baked up wonderfully and imparted a heavenly chocolate smell. They are easy to remove from the pan. Once cooled the result was a pleasant surprise. I haven't had a cookie like this before. You don't taste the gin at all, but they warn the effect may kick in. Might I say this cookie went over very well as well on my holiday cookie trays. So keep this cookie away from the kiddies. What we have here is a legal cookie with gin soaked substance.

* Note vanilla is not listed as an ingredient, but the instructions call for it.

Be sure to visit my other baking friends and see what they chose to bake for the holidays from Gourmet.com.
Jerry - http://www.cookingbytheseatofmypants.com/
Judy - http://www.nofearentertaining.blogspot.com/
Sandy - http://www.bakersbench.blogspot.com/
Kelly - http://sassandveracity.typepad.com/
Claire - http://www.thebarefootkitchen.com/
Andrea - http://www.andreasrecipes.com/