Spiced Brandy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Teacher Appreciation Week at Oceanside, which means the PTA puts out a continental breakfast in the faculty lounge and the students write cards, some of which are perfunctory and some of which are genuine and all of which I keep. I have a box — a shoebox, originally, now a larger box, now a very large box — of student notes and cards from forty years of teaching. They say things like "You made me love reading" and "I didn't think I could write until your class" and "Your brisket rugelach changed my life," which is not technically about teaching but is, in its way, the highest compliment I know how to receive. I will keep every card. I will keep them until I cannot keep anything, and then someone will find the box and either throw it away or read them all and understand what I did with my life.

Ethan turned five on Wednesday. David called to tell me about the birthday party — a chaotic affair involving twelve kindergarteners and a bouncy castle and a cake shaped like a dinosaur that Jennifer made herself, which I found both impressive and slightly insulting, because cake is my territory, but Jennifer's dinosaur cake was apparently magnificent, and I have decided to be gracious about it. I sent rugelach. Rugelach is always appropriate. Rugelach transcends jurisdiction.

Marvin had a good week — and I notice that I now categorize weeks as good or not good based on the frequency and severity of his forgetting, which is a metric I never imagined I would use to measure the quality of my life. A good week means he asked fewer repeated questions. A good week means he didn't get lost on the way to the bathroom. A good week means he laughed at something I said, and the laugh was the right laugh, the Marvin laugh, the one that starts in his chest and works its way up. He laughed three times this week. I counted. I count everything now.

Rugelach is my first language, but sometimes a birthday party involving twelve kindergarteners and a bouncy castle calls for something a little sturdier — something that ships well, travels in a tin, and lands with the same love even when you can’t be there in person. These spiced brandy oatmeal raisin cookies are what I reach for when rugelach belongs at the center of the table but I need something to fill in around the edges of a week that counted three good laughs and one magnificent dinosaur cake.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 32 minutes | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons brandy
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
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 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together with a hand or stand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add wet ingredients. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the brandy and vanilla extract until fully incorporated.
Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt.
Mix the dough. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir until just combined. Fold in the rolled oats and raisins with a wooden spoon or spatula until evenly distributed.
Portion and bake. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Bake for 11–13 minutes, until the edges are set and lightly golden but the centers still look slightly underdone.
Cool completely. Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. They will firm as they cool. Store in an airtight tin for up to one week — or pack them into a box and send them somewhere they’re needed.

Nutrition (per serving)

Spiced Brandy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies — The Ones I Send When Rugelach Isn’t Enough