And yet, I have never been able to make these without them being a total gloopy mess. I've tried at least a dozen times over the past 20 years, each time hoping that I'd figure out the tragic flaw in my preparation...and each time, failing and ending up with runny cookies (which I still ate, of course - with a spoon). How could I fail at a recipe that just about everyone on the planet can make?
After my successes at baking cupcakes & cakes from scratch, I thought I'd try my hand at this recipe one more time before kicking it out of my cookbook. Reading through it, I finally realized what I had been doing wrong all these years - I didn't let it come to a full boil before starting the timer on the 1 minute boil. D'oh!
So after 20 years of failure, I had a bright shining moment of non-baking brilliance & ended up with these delicious treats:
Words can't capture how absolutely thrilled I was with this success story. Nor can Chuck's expression.
Lessons learned and recipe thoughts:
1. Now that I realize what I've been doing wrong all these years, I'm officially declaring this an easy recipe. :) And easy on the kitchen as well - just a single pot & spoon to clean afterwards.
2. Part of the reason I made these was so I could tell my co-workers that I took a weekend off from baking. You know, because they are no-bake cookies. Co-worker quote of the week: "you have a problem."
3. If at first you don't succeed, keep doing it the same way a dozen more times. And then read the recipe and do it the right way.
Chocolate Peanut Butter No-bake Cookies:
Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
4 tbls cocoa powder
1 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
1 cup peanut butter
1 tbls vanilla
3 cups oatmeal (I used quick-cooking)
waxed paper
Directions:
In a heavy saucepan bring to a boil (an actual full boil) the sugar, cocoa, butter, and milk. Let boil for 1 minute then add peanut butter, vanilla, and oatmeal. Drop mixture by spoonful onto waxed paper and cool til hardened.
I can taste these from just looking at them. They bring back a lot of happy memories of eating them both at your parents' house and at church countless times! I'll have to make these with my girls, for sure.
ReplyDeletethere was a 2nd grade teacher at Eissler Elementary that used to make these and self-titled them 'Wiley's mud'. You should really consider going into business with this stuff and shipping it out. Of course you may have to do some testing with some trials to make sure it ends up just how you want it. I'm willing to be your first guinea pig. :)
ReplyDeleteedit: 20 minutes later and my own batch of no bakes are currently cooling on the counter. Thanks for the inspiration! After looking at your recipe, I figured... that doesn't seem very hard, let me see if we have all those ingredients and one thing led to another. They'll come in handy for tonight's end of season soccer pizza party.
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