baking christmas lizzies

I'm cranking up a few dozen Lizzies, my favorite Christmas cookie. Here's my variation on the recipe, maybe these should be called the Lizzie Borden variant because they are killer. Makes about 4-5 dozen cookies.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
1 t vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour
3 t baking soda
freshly ground nutmeg, cinnamon & cloves to taste (I only use a few pinches of each)
1 lb raisins (Trader Joe's has a medley of golden, red flame and black that are perfect for this. In fact the whole TJ's nut & fruit aisle is a great source for Lizzie bakers)
1 lb dried fruits (try a mix of dried cherries, apricots, figs, cranberries; chop the big pieces up)
4 cups nuts (this year I used about 2c pecans, 1c slivered almonds, and some chopped brazil nuts)
1/2 cup nice cognac or brandy (I used a mellow old Martell Cordon Bleu handed down from my grandmother)

The night before you plan to bake, soak the fruits in the cognac.

Blend the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and spices in a large bowl. Stir in the baking soda, then add the flour and mix with a wooden spoon until fully combined. You should have a nice creamy, sticky cookie dough at this point. Fold in the fruit including any leftover liquid, and add the nuts. Mix until well combined, at which point you may wonder if there's enough dough to hold all the chunky goodies together. Don't worry, the cookies are supposed to look like that ;-)

Place 1"-2" balls of dough on a lightly greased cookie sheet, and bake at 325F for 15-20 minutes. Cool on a rack, and plan for a good hard workout because you are going to eat a lot of these puppies.