Perfectly Addicting No-Bake Cookies

If anyone follows this blog, they have probably figured out that I’m currently theme-less. In other words, you never really know what to expect, and therefore don’t follow my blog. It makes sense. I'll work on that.

Today’s topic is no-bake cookies. For those wondering if I feed my child no-bake cookies, the answer is no. My wife does. I only make them.

No-bake cookies are so simple, and require very little to make. The benefit far outweighs the effort. However, if you have little self control around sweets, these cookies will likely kill you dead. I'm not a believer in crack, but if I were, these cookies would be like crack. If crack tasted like these cookies . . . I don't know how to finish that sentence.

To make these, you have to use the right ingredients or else you shouldn’t even bother making them. You can screw them up, and I’ve done it enough to know not to mess with the key ingredients. I will share with you the perfect recipe.

It's simple enough. Almost everything is a quarter cup:

¼ Cup butter – YOU HAVE TO USE BUTTER. If you only have margarine, make brownies or something. Margarine does not make no-bake cookies.
¼ Cup milk
¼ Cup baking cocoa
1 Cup sugar

Mix that all up, and let it boil for one minute. I like to add a little salt and vanilla. Ooh, look at me go. After it’s boiled and bubbled, and you’ve stirred the sense out of it, add the rest.

¼ Cup peanut butter – I have found that the peanut butter with the most preservatives makes the best cookies. I personally prefer creamy Jif. In one of my early attempts at making these, my sister was able to pick the peanut chunks out of her cookies when I used chunky peanut butter, so I’ve never attempted since. You have to use something that’s going to set though. I used Adam’s peanut butter and it resulted in a huge embarrassing failure.

1 ¾ Cup Old Fashioned Quaker Oats oatmeal. YOU HAVE TO USE THE QUAKER’S OATS. IT HAS TO BE OLD FASHIONED. Don’t use generic. Don’t use quick oats. Don’t screw up with this key ingredient. You will regret it. If you don’t have Old Fashioned Quaker Oats, make monster cookies or something.

The best thing to do with no-bake cookies is drop them into huge globs on either wax paper, or any kind of non-stick flat surface, and toss it all in the freezer. This does many things. It cools the cookies down faster, chewy little goodies that last slightly longer and will make you quiver a little, and it will give you a “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. However, if you know they are there, you will eat them. Don’t kid yourself. This is for real. They are little inanimate demons that haunt your mind, and will keep you coming back to the freezer long after they have disappeared. But if you have read this far, you know that you’re going to make some right now.

So there you go. The batch size is purposefully small. The reason is that if you make more, you will eat more. I’ve shed many a tear in my life watching cookies get thrown away, but I do not recall ever throwing away a well-made no-bake cookie. Even the poorly made ones disappear in a timely fashion.

Until next time.

Spoon