Little Raisins, Not Much Rum: Pan-Banging Rum Raisin Cookies

I've already made dozens of recipes from Sarah Kieffer's 100 Cookies, and there are so many more I'm looking forward to trying. But there was one recipe that made me groan silently inside when I saw it -- "Rum Raisin Cookies." I am biased because I don't drink alcohol at all, but rum raisin is literally the only flavor of ice cream that I have hated my entire life. Just the idea of rum raisin turns my stomach. But I usually bake something for my husband to take to his weekly golf game, and I figured that his golf buddies would be receptive to a boozy cookie. I decided to make them a single batch of rum raisin cookies.

This recipe is nearly identical to Kieffer's Pan-Banging Oatmeal Chocolate Cookie. They have the same oatmeal cookie base, but while the oatmeal-chocolate cookie includes (obviously) chocolate, the rum raisin cookie includes rum-soaked raisins, rum, cinnamon, and orange zest.
 
The first step in this recipe is to soak the raisins in rum. I buy all sorts of different raisins from nuts.com and as it turned out, when I made this recipe I only had very small raisins (currants and petite raisins) and giant raisins (royal raisins). I decided to go with the petite raisins, both because I thought the huge raisins would soak up too much rum, and also because I know that pan-banging cookies turn out quite flat, and I didn't want to have oversized raisins poking up everywhere. I soaked the raisins for 20 minutes and drained them, reserving the liquid.
 
To make the batter, you beat softened butter with granulated sugar, brown sugar, and orange zest until light and fluffy; add egg, vanilla, and some of the reserved rum used to soak the raisins; incorporate the dry ingredients (oats, flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon); and mix in the raisins. I used a #16 scoop to portion out the dough and got 15 cookies. I baked the cookies on foil-lined pans, banging the pans periodically during the last half of the baking time.
I got very little rippling at the edges of these cookies. I gingerly took a bite of a cooled cookie expecting to be overwhelmed with boozy raisins and was surprised that I could not taste the rum at all. Maybe the small raisins weren't capable of soaking up much rum, but I would have guessed that this was just an oatmeal raisin cookie (with a distinct touch of orange) if I didn't know what was in it. Ironically, I was disappointed that there was zero rum flavor. I don't like rum raisin, but it seemed like I had just wasted a bunch of rum and obviously the cookie did not come out as Kieffer intended since there was no rum flavor at all. 

So it's a little difficult for me to judge this cookie, since I'm pretty sure it would be significantly different if I had used larger raisins or soaked the raisins longer. But I will reiterate what I said after I made her pan-banging oatmeal chocolate cookies. I prefer Kieffer's non-pan banging oatmeal cookies, which have a super-chewy texture that to me is optimal for an oatmeal cookie. I have tried her regular oatmeal raisin; oatmeal, white chocolate, and golden raisin; and oatmeal, white chocolate, rosemary, and apricot -- and all three recipes are fantastic. But different strokes for different folks!
 
Recipe: "[Pan-Banging] Rum Raisin Cookies" from 100 Cookies by Sarah Kieffer. 

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