Dark Rum Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

December. The month of pasteles and planning and the full machinery of Christmas preparation that is my annual joy and my annual marathon. This year the preparation has a different energy — lighter, freer, the first pandemic-free Christmas or near-free, the first December where I can plan without the weight of restrictions, without the calculus of who can come and who cannot and whether the windows must be open and whether the masks must be worn. This December the door is open and everyone walks through it and the walking through is the celebration before the celebration.

The pasteles assembly was Saturday. The full team: Rosa (tired, nursing Camila between grating sessions, Carlos holding the baby in the living room while Rosa grated plantains with the arm strength of a woman who teaches third-graders and carries an infant and refuses to be excluded from the pasteles). Sofía, handling the filling. Ana, wrapping with the technique I will never publicly acknowledge is better than mine. Me, supervising. And Mami — Mami in her wheelchair, in the shawl, in the kitchen, watching.

We made fifty this year. Fifty pasteles, wrapped in banana leaves, tied with string, assembled by four women and one grandmother in a kitchen in Hartford, Connecticut, the same recipe that was assembled in a kitchen in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, by women who never left the island but whose hands left the island in their daughters' hands and traveled to the mainland and continued the work. The work continued. The pasteles are in the freezer. Christmas is in the pasteles. The year is in the pasteles. Everything is in the pasteles. The banana leaf holds everything.

Mami was quiet during the assembly. Not foggy — quiet. Watching. Her eyes followed our hands the way a conductor's eyes follow the orchestra, tracking the movements, hearing the music in the motion. At one point she reached out and touched the masa — just touched it, one finger, the finger trembling but purposeful — and she nodded. The touch was a benediction. The nod was an approval. The masa was correct. Mami said so. Without words. The hands said so. The hands that made the masa for fifty years and that cannot make it anymore and that still know, by touch, when it is right.

By the time the last pastel was tied and stacked and the banana leaves were cleared from the counter, we were all quiet in that particular way you get quiet after hours of shared work—wrung out and full at the same time. I wanted something for us to eat right then, in that kitchen, before anyone put on their coats. Something warm and a little indulgent, something that still had that Caribbean thread running through it. These dark rum oatmeal raisin cookies had been on my mind since morning—the rum is the thing, rum the way it lives in Puerto Rican kitchens, in the cáscos and the caña and the flavor memory of the island. We ate them standing at the counter, still in our aprons, and Mami took one and held it in both hands like it was a small warm thing she was glad to have.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons dark rum
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups raisins

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat softened butter with granulated and brown sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add wet ingredients. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the dark rum and vanilla extract. Mix until fully combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Gradually stir the dry mixture into the butter mixture until just incorporated—do not overmix.
Fold in oats and raisins. Stir in the rolled oats and raisins by hand until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
Portion the cookies. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Gently press each mound down slightly with the back of a spoon.
Bake. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are set and lightly golden but the centers still look slightly underdone. They will firm up as they cool.
Cool and serve. Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Dark Rum Oatmeal Raisin Cookies — The Sweet Close to a Saturday Full of Pasteles