Baking Feature: Coconut Rum Raisinet Cookies

Today is our friend's birthday, and I believe that old saying "the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach" was written about him, so I am making him food for his present.
I found this recipe a few months ago when I was eating Raisinets and said to Google, "these are amazing and I love them utterly. Can I put them in other sweet foods I love to make them better?" Google said yes...kind of. Google honestly said "here's a blog entry from someone who put coconut, rum, raisins, and chocolate into a cookie, but used 'raisinet' in the name, so I thought I'd mention it."
That's why I keep you around, Google.

The blogmaster over at Oatmeal Cookie Blog created these cookies and posted the recipe, and they look like something our friend would really love. As an awesome bonus, I actually already had all of the ingredients at home.

First I started soaking the raisins in rum; already I liked this recipe. My personal favorite liquor is Malibu Coconut Rum, so I had to take this opportunity to soak half of the raisins in that, and I soaked the other half in (what I assume is "regular") Bacardi which I found upstairs. There are pictures in the slideshow if you have no idea what I'm talking about. The recipe said to soak them for 30-45 minutes (or more if you can) but since I had a little "incident" with the coconut (keep reading) I soaked them longer.

I used the method mentioned at Oatmeal Cookie blog to toast the coconut by putting it in a skillet in the oven. I then got distracted seeing if I could set Firefox up to open with multiple homepages in tabs and then starting this entry, and I burned the hell out of my coconut.

NEVER BAKE AND BLOG

But my second try was a success and it smelled WONDERFUL. At this point, I had a bowl of toasted coconut, and two bowls of raisins soaked in rum. I was tempted to stop there and call this recipe a success. But I pressed on...

I followed the recipe for the most part from here on, except that I waited to add the raisins until last and separated the batter into two equal parts so I could keep the Bacardi and the Malibu raisins separate. I must mention that this cookie batter was probably the MOST delicious cookie batter I've ever tasted in my life, and I think it's the dark brown sugar that did it. I also used spiced rum for the batter itself, because I saw a picture on Oatmeal Cookie Blog of the wet ingredients and noticed that it included Spiced rum

Overall, the cookies were AMAZING and I will definitely have to keep this recipe. They're not very pretty, but the golden rule of Aly's baking is that the uglier it is, the better it tastes. I don't really taste a difference between the Malibu and the Bacardi raisins, so I don't know that it matters (but I think I'll stick with Malibu... just to be sure).


-Aly

Recipe from Oatmeal Cookie Blog:

Ingredients:
Creamables:
1 stick butter
1 cup + 2 Tbsp dark brown sugar

Wet Ingredients:
3/4 cup raisins soaked in 3/4 cup rum, drained (I split these in half between Malibu and Bacardi)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp rum (I used spiced rum)
1tsp coconut extract

Dry Ingredients:
1 Cup Oatmeal
1 Cup coconut, toasted
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Soak the raisins in 3/4 cup rum to plump for 30-45 min
2. Toast the coconut (See directions on Oatmeal Cookie Blog)
3. Preheat oven to 350
4. In your Kitchen Aid or a large mixing bowl, cream together the creamables.
5. In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Whisk together until smooth.
6. Add the combined wet ingredients to the creamables. Mix together until well incorporated.
7. Strain the raisins, discarding the remaining rum. Add the plumped raisins to the combined wet ingredients and creamables. Mix together until well incorporated.
8. In a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients. Using a spatula, fold together until evenly distributed.
9. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the combined creamables and wet ingredients. Mix until evenly combined.
10. Shape dough into balls - about Tbsp each
11. Place the dough balls about 2 inches apart on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets
12. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes. Then place cookies on wire racks to cool.