Recipe: Chocolate Italian Cookie recipe (using cloves, raisins, walnuts, and cocoa)

ITALIAN CHOCOLATE COOKIES
Source: Immigrant and Native Italian Cooking / Robert A. Alfieri and Genevieve P. Hill.

"These cookies from my mother are the most sought after dessert I've ever made. Neither too sweet nor too cake-like, my friends have commented that they must contain a drug that makes you want to have another. They go by various names: Italian Meatball Cookies, Italian Sinker Ball Cookies, Chocolate Italian Cookies, Italian Chocolate Cookies and, my favorite, Brown Balls."

WET INGREDIENTS:
1 lb. Crisco shortening
1 qt. whole milk (not skim or 2%)
DRY INGREDIENTS:
4 lbs. bleached all-purpose flour (Pillsbury's Best), it is best to get two 2 lb. bags, otherwise it is necessary that you weigh the flour carefully, never try to convert pounds to cups
3 cups sugar
1 cup Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder
1 12 oz. bag of Nestle's semi-sweet morsels (normal-sized chocolate chips)
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup raisins
1 heaping tsp. cinnamon
1 heaping tsp. clove
1 heaping tsp. nutmeg (best to grate whole nutmeg yourself)
1 Tbsp. baking soda
FOR THE FROSTING (X2):
2 lb. Confectioner's sugar
7/8 cup lukewarm water

1. Melt Crisco and milk over medium heat. DO NOT STIR. Turn off heat and let sit for 3 hours. The next time you make the recipe, you can let it cool off in the freezer and you will know how cool it needs to be based on the first time.

2. In the meantime, combine all the other (dry) ingredients in a large sauce pot. Mix thoroughly with your hands, making sure to fold in flour and other ingredients that are stuck at the bottom.

3. Preheat oven to 375 degres F.

4. Pour Crisco+milk from step 1 into dry mixture. Mix very thoroughly with your hands. Make sure all of the dry ingredients are folded into the cookie dough, including the stuff at the bottom of the pot.

5. Push together pieces of dough into balls about 1 5/8" diameter. DO NOT ROLL. Essentially, you want to create something that is shaped like a ball, but has lots of cracks for the frosting. If you make them too smooth, they won't hold as much frosting.

6. Bake in center of oven for 15 minutes. It's best to use one of those large, insulated cookie sheets and cook only one sheet at a time. The cookies should not be completely dry when you take them out, otherwise they are overcooked.

7. Let the cookies sit on the stove for a little bit, then transfer to a large area covered with aluminum foil (typically half a kitchen island).

8. Mix new batch of frosting using above ingredients. You will need two batches of frosting to cover all cookies in this recipe.

9. As soon as the cookies from step 7 can be handled, hold each by their bottom and dunk into frosting all the way to the base of the cookie. Shake excess and place right-side-up on aluminum foil. Frost two cookies at a time, one in each hand. The cookies taste pretty good out of the oven like this, but they taste better after they have cooled fully.

10. Repeat steps 5-9 until all cookies are done.

11. Wait 2 hours, then cover cookies with aluminum foil and let them dry overnight.

12. The next morning, put the cookies into large plastic freezer bags. They can be frozen for months and taken out as necessary.

13. If you want to sneak a tasty snack, pull one out of the freezer and microwave on high for 30 seconds.