the Christmas cookie that never gets old

Okay, it's technically a bar. And I'm not sure other people necessarily brand it as a Christmas treat. But either way: Behold the carmelita.

Lately: I’ve been enjoying The Cut’s new-ish newsletter, Book Gossip. This month’s edition leads with reminiscences about publishing house holiday parties in an era that’s deader than dead. … Speaking of industries that involve the written word: I started working part-time last week as a bookseller at Wonderland Books, a new store in Bethesda, Md. I’m there two days a week and having more fun than I ever could have imagined, especially considering my last retail experience was at Georgetown Cupcake in 2007. I’m 1,000 times better suited for bookselling than hawking overpriced cupcakes. … And here’s a fun update: My husband is launching a Substack newsletter to complement his work as a reporter at The Washington Post. It’s free and will go behind the scenes of his job covering the business of college sports. Subscribe here, please! … Just like last year, I’m offering a pretty steep discount on paid subscriptions between now and the end of the year. Click this link or the button below to subscribe or upgrade.

carmelitas

adapted from this classic Pillsbury recipe

active time: 20 minutes

total time: 50 minutes, plus cooling

It took growing up and learning about my other families’ traditions — my friends’, my husband's — to realize it: I come from a Christmas cookie family. While other people try new recipes each year or have one signature treat they come back to each December, my family leans toward excess. Organized, tradition-heavy excess. Every holiday season for as long as I can remember — for longer than I’ve been alive — the women in my family have started baking as soon as Thanksgiving has ended, the same four recipes over and over, delivering boxes of sweets as gifts and snacking on them well into the new year. German chocolate pound cake, Russian tea biscuits¹, my great-grandma’s sugar cookie recipe and carmelitas. This is our roster, never to be altered.

Carmelitas are by far the most addictive offering. Jesse sighed last week when I made my first batch. “I guess I’m going to gain 10 pounds now,” he said, as if there was no other choice but to idly snack on five or six of them each day. A high school friend of mine used to ask me to mail them across the country each year, and I did — despite the fact that the carmelita recipe is out there on the Internet, by no means something of my family’s creation.

But over the years, we’ve mastered the art of this sweet and salty little bar cookie. Pillsbury’s recipe, to me, lacks some drama. This is a dessert that should be a much about chocolate and nuts as it is about oats, and the Pillsbury version hews too close to breakfast for my liking. A carmelita is going to be sweet no matter what, but my formula punches it up with bittersweet chocolate and an extra dose of pecans, and maybe that’s why UPS has earned a small fortune over the years zipping these things to all corners of the country.

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ cups butter, softened, plus more for greasing the pan

• 2 cups + 3 tbsp. all purpose flour

• 2 ½ cups quick-cooking rolled oats

• 1 ½ cups firmly packed brown sugar

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt

• 1 12.5-oz. jar of caramel ice cream topping

• 1 ½ cups bittersweet² chocolate chips

• ¾ cup chopped pecans

Instructions:

1. Heat your oven to 350°F, and butter a 13x9-inch pan (or use cooking spray).

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter, 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of oats, brown sugar, baking soda and salt. Pulse the mixture several times to begin, allowing the flour to start to incorporate. Once the mixture is somewhat combined and there’s no longer a risk of it overflowing, mix at low speed until it’s crumbly and looks like clumps of wet sand.

3. Scoop out about 3 ½ cups (slightly more than half) and press it into your prepared pan, creating a uniform crust base. Bake the crust for 10 minutes, until it’s just beginning to puff and brown at the edges.

4. While the crust bakes, add the additional ½ cup of oats to the remaining oat-flour-sugar mixture, and mix on low speed for about a minute until the oats are completely incorporated. Set aside.

5. Combine caramel topping and 3 tbsp. of flour in a small bowl or (and this is my preference) a liquid measuring cup with a spout³. The flour will slightly lighten and loosen the texture of the caramel.

6. Chop the pecans, either by hand or in a nut chopper⁴.

7. Remove the crust from the oven, and sprinkle it evenly with the chopped pecans. Next, sprinkle the chocolate chips, again trying to cover the surface relatively evenly. Drizzle the caramel across the top, taking care to avoid the very edges⁵. Sprinkle the remaining oat crust on top of the caramel, covering it entirely.

8. Return the pan to the oven and bake an additional 20 to 25 minutes, until the topping is golden brown. Cool for 1 hour, and then refrigerate the pan for 2 hours, until the filling is set. Cut the carmelitas into 20-25 rectangular bars.

1. This is the recipe I almost never make on my own, for whatever reason. And if you google “Russian tea biscuit,” you’ll get a lot of different variations. The cookie we call RTBs looks a lot like this one.

2. BITTERSWEET! THEY MUST BE BITTERSWEET.

3. The spout will make it much, much easier to pour the caramel in a controlled way.

4. This is a great kitchen gadget and worth every penny.

5. It’s much easier to cut the baked carmelitas if the caramel doesn’t bleed to the edges, where it will harden.