Monday, January 17, 2011

The Ancestor of the Raisin Cookie?

One of the types of cookies my mother-in-law always makes for Christmas is something the family calls a "raisin cookie."  These are half-circles of a sweetened dough, a little like piecrust dough in character, with a sweetened raisin filling. 

After Christmas dinner this year, my husband Googled for "raisin cookie" and was frustrated to find no real information about these cookies or, for that matter, any indication that other people were making and eating them.  He was mildly distressed at the thought that the "raisin cookie" might be dying out, and might soon no longer be made.

Today, I did some Googling of my own, using the search term "filled raisin cookie", and fared rather better than he had.  In fact, I found a number of rather similar recipes, each of which looked as though it might produce the type of raisiny goodness that my mother-in-law bakes.  Most of the recipes included a comment by the contributor to the effect that "my 80-something-year-old grandma (or mother or whatever) has baked these for many years."  (My mother-in-law is close to 80).  I found recipes from a number of sites, including allrecipes.com, BakeSpace, and grandmaskitchen, to name the ones I bothered to print out. Some of these sites had pictures of the cookies in question, and except for the shape they looked a lot like the cookies my mother-in-law bakes.  (My husband told me after I started my research, though, that his mother used to make her raisin-filled cookies round, out of two pieces of dough, but changed to her present format because it was less work to just fold over one circle.)

However, I'm not really interested in finding cookie recipes, since I'm not interested in baking. I'm interested in finding out how and where the "raisin cookie" evolved and, if possible, whether they are still being made.  The grandmaskitchen site gave me an interesting clue; it noted that the elderly female baker in question claimed that the recipe "is based on an old-fashioned British pastry called ‘Eccles cake.’" So I started Googling for the term "Eccles cake," and turned up a lot of information.

Wikipedia reports that an "Eccles cake" is named for the town of Eccles, which is in Lancashire, and it's a small round cake, made from flaky pastry and stuffed with currants and may be sprinkled with demerara sugar.  Other sites purported to give more history, tracing the Eccles cake to a shopkeeper named James Birch in the late 18th century and/or a woman named Elizabeth Raffald who published a popular cookbook in 1769 that contains a similar recipe. The Food Timeline reports both versions and notes that early versions of the Eccles cake probably contained alcohol as well as fruit. Yet another site, whose author claims to be "rather rubbish" at baking, claims that Eccles cake is an "English classic" and that it's practically required "that every Englishman (and woman) know how to make an Eccles cake."

The English angle is kind of mystifying to me.  My husband's mother's family has Scottish ancestry, but Eccles is effectively part of Manchester, which makes it definitely part of northern England, but not close enough to the Scottish border to be plausibly Scottish.  So far as I know, my husband's family doesn't have English forebears. EDIT: My husband read this post and confirmed that his family does not have English ancestry on either side.

On the other hand, one of the sites I found noted that Eccles cakes travel well, and were being exported to the young United States as early as 1818.  That suggests, to me, that there might have arisen a fashion among U.S. bakers for trying to imitate the Eccles cake, and that fashion may have given rise to cookbooks with similar recipes--one of which my mother-in-law is using.  However, the photographs of actual Eccles cakes look very different from her cookies, to me, so I don't think the case for this theory is quite proven.

I should ask my mother-in-law for her recipe, both to see how it compares to the recipes I've found on the Internet, and to have one of my husband's favorite cookie recipes handy, in case I someday want to try to bake some.

EDIT:  (12/4/2019)  Edited to correct my mother-in-law's age.  I had overestimated.

21 comments:

  1. Probably not relevant, but I used to like a commercial raisin-filled cookie that was basically two sweet crackers with raisin filling in between. Haven't seen them in years.

    You may also be amused (and this is equally irrelevant to your research) to hear that when I used to work Renaissance Faire, "Eccles cake" was our code word for a collection of performers who were all in a little circle facing inward and talking to each other -- something we weren't supposed to do, since we were supposed to be accessible to the audience. Someone would come up to the group and work the words "Eccles cake" into their seemingly casual comments to remind everyone to open up the circle ;)

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  2. Probably not relevant, but I used to like a commercial raisin-filled cookie that was basically two sweet crackers with raisin filling in between. Haven't seen them in years.

    I don't know--it might well be relevant. It might be a US commercial effort to make a knock-off of the Eccles cake. Do you remember the brand name?

    I am also amused by your Ren Faire "Eccles cake" story. What a clever device! (Though, of course, "Eccles cakes" weren't period for the Renaissance!)

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  3. My grandfather loved the cookies that Chris mentioned...which I adored as well. But I haven't seen that brand in years either. I was at a Highland Games last summer and found Crawford's Garibaldi biscuits that were quite close. I found them on Amazon...I should order a few packages.

    http://www.amazon.com/Garibaldi-Crawfords-Biscuits-100g/dp/B001J5SW5U/ref=sr_1_8?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1296091365&sr=1-8

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  4. Ah, me again...minutes later. Was the cookie Sunshine brand's Golden fruit raisin biscuits? They were phased out when they merged with Keebler. I really liked those cookies.

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  5. Thanks Goldilocksprime! I will have to get some Crawford's Garibaldi biscuits and some Sunshine fruit raisin biscuits and try them out.

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  6. If you believe Wikipedia, both Garibaldi biscuits and Sunshine's Golden Fruit Raisin Biscuits are cousins of the Eccles cake.

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  7. My mother-in-law also made such cookies, using a basic sugar cookie for the cookie part. FWIW, she did have some English ancestry (along with German, Dutch, Cherokee, and probably some others I've forgotten...). We always called them filled sugar cookies, or raisin-filled sugar cookies. For either name Google produces an abundance of recipes.

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  8. Hi, Paula!

    I find it interesting that your mother-in-law also made raisin cookies. Eric's family is of mixed ancestry also--a very similar mixture in fact. (Scots and Rhinelander German as well as English on his mother's side.)

    Thanks for stopping by.

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    1. I know I'm picking up a thread that's over a year old - but I happened to Google "raisin cookie" with the same frustration you described above, until I came across your link. I had never even heard of a raisin-filled cookie until I met my wife. She comes from the Central PA area (near Bucknell) where these cookies are available at a number of small bakeries and farmers markets. It seems to be a PA-Dutch recipe that has become a staple of the area. I've become completely addicted to the soft-pillowy-goodness, and usually buy a dozen or two every time we go home to visit. As a side note, though, they're almost always just called "raisin cookies". Hmmm.... time to grab another batch!

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    2. I completely agree with Mark.

      These cookies are very common in Central PA (often baked by Amish or Mennonites nowadays), and are available at farmer's markets throughout the region. I grew up there and miss raisin-filled cookies so much, I stock up every time I go.

      To me, they seem like a German-style baked good, not English. They are sold along side snickerdoodles and whoopie pies, and I would guess the histories are related.

      Good luck!

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    3. Hi, Joan! This is really a late response! But I thought you should know that I live not far from Lancaster County which is another heavily Amish area. Other Amish/Mennonite foods have been popular in my area when I was growing up. Thanks for your comment!

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  9. Mark H: I don't object to new comments on old threads, unless they're spam. Welcome to my blog!

    Since I live only about an hour from Pennsylvania Dutch country, that too may be relevant to my quest for raisin cookies and recipes. Thanks for the information.

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  10. Here we are 4-1/2 years later ... I grew up in Somerset County PA (southwestern) and have always held Yost's Dutch Maid Bakery's raisin cookies to be perfection. Since then I moved near Philadelphia and raisin filled cookies don't exist here. I usually by a few dozen any time that I visit the other side of the state. My heritage is German and Eastern European as is most of where I grew up. I was given a recipe from my aunt that uses a sugar cookie-like recipe for the cookie that is egg heavy and includes a few tablespoons of buttermilk. The filling is a corn starch thickened, spiced mixture of brown sugar, water, and raisins.

    I'm not sure if the cookies are German or simply a PA Dutch creation but they have "always been around" according to parents and grand-parents.

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  11. Kris (kitchenitreal)June 24, 2018 at 2:31 PM

    I have recently started sorting through, preparing, and researching the vintage recipes that were passed down to me from my grandmother. I came across a Date Filled Cookie recipe and was delighted with the outcome. It sounds very similar to your raisin cookie (has dates and raisins both in the filling). I have also had little luck in finding the origin or even a little bit of history about them. Thank you for sharing what you found in your research!!

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  12. grew up in western pa., my ancestry is Hungarian,czech,slovak., my mom made the best raisen filled cookies and raisen pies.,

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  13. I know this was over two years agon but...Yost's is the company that makes them. I remember them growing up as my grandma would always have them when I was there. Here's a link to their Yahoo page since I don't think they have a website of their own: https://local.yahoo.com/info-11911309-yost-s-dutch-maid-bakery-johnstown

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    1. I don't mind late comments unless they're spam! Welcome.

      I can't tell if the Yost cookies are the same type of raisin cookie from your link, though--there are no pictures. Guess I'll have to order some sometime. ;-) Thanks.

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    2. My Mother-In-Law made Raisin Cookies every Christmas as presents, along with her other cookies, such as Snickerdoodles and Sand Tarts. She passed away in 2016, so my husband and I have taken over the roll of making Christmas Cookies for the family. We are from the Pennsylvania Dutch area, so have most of the area cookie recipes. Here is her recipe for Marion's Raisin Cookies. It takes a little while to make them, but they are so worth it!
      Dough:
      1 Cup Butter
      2 Cups Sugar
      2 Eggs, beaten
      1 Cup Milk
      6 tsp Baking Powder
      2 tsp Vanilla
      ½ tsp Salt
      6 Cups Flour

      Mix vanilla with milk. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs, baking powder and flour. Add milk/vanilla mixture and mix. Chill dough overnight.

      Raisin Filling:
      1 ½ Cups Sugar
      2 Cups Boiling Water
      2 Cups Raisins
      3 TBSP Flour
      ½ tsp Salt

      Mix sugar and flour with a little boiling water. Then mix with other dry ingredients. Cook, stirring untill thickened. Fold in raisins. Chill overnight.

      Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

      Roll out dough and use a doughnut cutter to make cookies. For top of cookie use a thimble to cut hole. Put about ¾ tsp filling on bottom cookie and cover with top (cookie with hole in it). Use forefinger to press top and bottom together.

      Bake for 12 – 15 minutes.

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    3. Thanks for visiting! This sounds a lot like my MIL's recipe too. And though neither my family nor my MIL's are from Pennsylvania Dutch country, we all have settled down near it, in Chester County, PA.

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  14. My grandmother made raisin-filled cookies often. I'm going to see if I can find her recipe. It used what I always assumed was pie dough, and the 3- to 4-inch rounds were filled with the raisin mixture and pinched around the edges, just like a pie would be. My grandmother was of German origin, some German Jewish, and her family had come to the U.S. in the mid-1800s, ending up in SW PA. Once when I was in school in Cleveland in the early 70s, I mentioned in a letter to her how much I loved her raisin cookies. A box of them arrived shortly thereafter.

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  15. Thanks for visiting! These cookies, as well as Donna Miller's recipe above, really sound a lot like what my MIL makes.

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