I initially made these cookies by accident. I was making a huge batch of various baked goods for an event. The kitchen was completely full of finished and half-made delicious things, with trays of macarons and cooling cakes on every surface (my tiny kitchen doesn’t really have many surfaces). I was making a pan of brownies that had a cookie dough base and Oreos in the middle, and I messed up the quantities and ended up with a load of spare cookie dough. Maths is not my strong point.

So I had this plain cookie dough without a purpose, and no time to think properly about what to do with it. I had raisins. I had oats. I had rum. The cookies were born.

The first time I made these, I threw the ingredients in randomly, without measuring, and didn’t pay much attention because I was making loads of other things too. And they were amazing. So very good. I had to give them away to stop myself from eating them all immediately.

So I was then faced with the task of recreating the cookies of joy. I mean, you know, there have been worse tasks. I played around for a bit, and this is what I came up with. Unfortunately I can never make them again, unless I’m prepared to eat an entire batch of oatmeal rum raisin cookies myself very quickly.

Notes

This recipe makes around 20 generously sized cookies.

Ingredients

150g raisins
75ml rum
250g butter, softened
200g light brown sugar
100g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large egg yolks
325g plain flour
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
a little grated whole nutmeg
120g oats

Method

1. Pop your raisins and rum together in a bowl to soak. Line a baking tray which will fit in your freezer with parchment paper. In your largest bowl or in a stand-mixer, beat the butter and both types of sugar together until just combined and even, then beat in the vanilla and egg yolks – all at once is fine. Add your flour, salt, bicarbonate, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. Mix to form firm dough. Finally, fold in your oats, raisins, and any un-absorbed rum.
2. Using a small ice cream scoop, scoop the dough into golf ball sized rounds and pop them on your lined tray. Freeze for an hour, or up to a month.
3. Heat your oven to 180C/ 160C fan/ gas 4, and take the cookies out of the freezer. Spread the frozen dough between three or four lined baking trays – you need to give them a lot of space to expand.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the outsides of the cookies are baked and crispy, but the insides still feel soft and underbaked. Let them rest on the counter to firm up for at least 10 minutes. Eat with reckless abandon.