Many years ago when the ingredients she had at hand fit no cookie recipe, Vivian Wayland created her own and shared them with friends. The result was declared a real winner and she jotted down the recipe for all who asked. I still have the small page from a tear-off recipe pad on which her penciled instructions have faded to pale grey.
Though it wasn’t December when Vivian Wayland turned out her experimental cookies here in the Arkansas Ozarks, they are well suited to the Christmas season, and her dried fruit cookies quickly became a part of our family Christmas. They make a good foil to the more standard sugar cookies. Packed with dates and raisins and pecans, they are also a good alternative treat for children careening into colored sugar overload. Plus they taste terrific! I include the Vivian Waylands in my Christmas cookie gift plates and have been asked for the recipe many times.
Like the breakfast muffins I wrote about earlier, this is a very forgiving recipe. You can tweak the proportions of dried fruits and nuts without damage.
Here are the instructions pretty much as Vivian Wayland wrote them, but I’ve added some parenthetical comments as well as suggestions at the end.
Vivian Wayland Fruit Cookies
Cream
1 C light brown sugar
2/3 C softened butter
Add
2 eggs
to make a batter
Add
1 C flour with 1 tsp spices*
1 tsp soda dissolved in 1 T hot water
Mix fruits and nuts with 1 C flour so they won’t clump.
1 ¼ lbs. chopped dates (use some of the flour to facilitate chopping**)
1 lb. raisins
2 C chopped pecans
Mix into batter.
Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets and bake at 350º for 10 to 12 minutes. Be sure and don’t over cook. Makes approximately 10 dozen.
*This is left up to the cook’s taste. I use more than a teaspoon total—probably a tsp of cinnamon, ¾ tsp nutmeg, two shakes of ginger, and one to three shakes of cloves. The amount of dates, raisins, and nuts don’t have to be exact. I often use 1½ lbs dates because they come in 8 oz. packages.
**Because of their stickiness, dates can be difficult to chop, but don’t let that tempt you into purchasing them pre-chopped. Those packaged chopped dates are rolled in sugar and who knows what else to keep them from clumping together. This increases the sweetness of the already sweet fruit and affects the taste of any recipe to which you add them. Those date pieces are also tough, unlike the softer, more flavorful whole dates.
You can use the 2nd cup of flour to make the task easier. Chop the dates in batches. Spread them on a cutting board and sprinkle liberally with some of the flour. Chop into chunky pieces; I tend to average three cuts per date. Whenever your knife starts to get sticky, add more flour. As each batch is chopped, scrape it into a large bowl along with any flour left on the cutting board. Add the raisins and pecans to this bowl as well as any flour remaining in the measuring cup. Mix with your hands to distribute the flour.
Not every kitchen experiment is a success. Not every food gift brings more than momentary pleasure. But some take root in the lives of the recipients, become part of family ritual, and are baked and passed on by an ever-widening circle of cooks. Vivian Wayland’s gift is one to treasure.
Happy Holidays!
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