Please Don’t Bake W/Me: Best No Bake Cookie Recipe

My grandparents were bakers for a combined total of over 80 years in New England. And let me tell you right now— Shh!🤫 This recipe is one of those recipes that will help you achieve “marry me” status. So keep it secret, and use your weapon wisely. It has been in my family for many, many years. Everyone loves these cookies. It’s in a recipe book my Grammy handwrote for me before she passed away, a recipe her mom gave to her, and someday it will be handed down to my son. I don’t know where and how they received it. I’m sure you can find similar dupes online but I’m passing you a family treasure. I hope it stays in your family for generations to come!

With no bake cookies, it is very important to not deviate from the recipe. It is like a chemical reaction that you are causing, so you have to measure and time everything right. If you follow my steps, it is SUPER EASY! But you’ve got to stick to the plan, man! Just follow the recipe and it will be dope! Got it? You CAN double the recipe. I don’t recommend doing more than a double batch at once because when you have to scoop them out, they will start crystallizing before you can get them scooped. But I double this recipe regularly. Here we go:

First— set everything up. BEFORE you turn your stove on, or cook Anything. Set it all up. You need a stick of butter. NOT MARGARINE. You need real butter. I use unsalted but I do add a pinch of salt to them later. So throw 1 stick of butter cut into 4-5 cubes into a medium sized or larger sauce pan. Add into the pan sugar, plain white granulated sugar. I don’t know if you can replace this in this recipe and tbh I don’t try. If you’re looking for sugar replacement recipes for no bakes I’m sure you can find them. But here we use 1 3/4 Cups white, granulated sugar. Into the same pan, add 1/3 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder. Depending on what I have on hand, I use either SACO Conscious Kitchen Organic Cocoa Powder, or Ghirardelli’s. I have used Hannaford store brand unsweetened cocoa powder in a pinch and it’s worked well enough. As long as it’s unsweetened cocoa powder you should be good. If you like dark chocolate you can use dark chocolate cocoa powder but it will alter the taste, (somewhat obvious statement there, I know! 😂) Next, add into the pan 1/2 cup milk. I usually use 2% but this is one that you can substitute the percentage… I’ve never substituted it for milk outside of cows milk however and I’m really not sure how milk such as fairlife or a nut milk would react 🤔 For this recipe, I always use cows milk. I’m sorry if that’s not possible for you! 😬 Lastly, add a good sized pinch of salt into the pot. Sea salt works but regular old Iodized kosher table salt works well. Set pan on stove burner but do not turn heat on yet! You still have prep to do!

Next, separately I measure out and set aside a HEAVY handed 2/3 cup of Peanut Butter. You want to fill the 2/3 measuring cup up and add an extra tablespoon or two so it’s FULL. Also! I have used other sorts of peanut butter, but I have found the best. One for flavor and texture in this recipe is Skippy Creamy natural peanut butter spread with honey. (Basically as long as it is peanut butter it works but this peanut butter has a thinner consistency, and it is sweeter because of the honey a thicker, less sweet and more dry peanut butter will alter the texture and flavor.) set peanut butter aside. In a separate bowl measure out 3 Cups QUICK oats. Do not use old fashioned oats . If you do, the cookies will wind up like chocolate puddles with little oat floaties in them and they won’t set. Use Quick Oats! You’re welcome! 😉 Measure out a TSP of Imitation vanilla extract. Straight from the beavers bum! Just joking, not all imitation vanilla comes from the beavers, but but it’s OK if yours does. It’s also OK if yours doesn’t just as long as you’re using imitation vanilla. I usually just measure my “Tsp” in the cap of the bottle, but since I dunno what kind you’re using I’m telling you a Teaspoon. Next, clear off your countertop you want a good size working space of maybe 2 to 3 feet depending on the width of your counter. You want to put parchment paper, wax paper, you can even use butcher block paper or an old paper bag, you’ve cut open and cover your countertop with it. If you don’t have any of these things, you can clean your countertop and dry it thoroughly and scoop the cookies directly onto that but just know they’re gonna be sitting on your countertop until they’ve cooled before you can scoop them off if you do it that way. I don’t prefer the direct on the countertop method, but I’ve seen many people in my family do it and it works. I prefer wax paper myself, but I’ve also used paper bags. It seems to dry the cookies out a little bit I think, absorbs some of the moisture. Anyway, once your countertop is prepped, get a rubber spatula or wooden spoon out and ready, as well as a cookie scoop or a large tablespoon. Now you’re done most of the time consuming bit. Do you want to turn your heat on medium, if you’re using an electric stove I usually put mine on the number 6. Here, you let the pan heat, stirring with your rubber spatula or wooden spoon pretty regularly. The ingredients are first going to integrate as you stir, then melt down, then start to bubble. Continue to stir regularly, stopping to see the bubbling progress and then stir again. As it starts to bubble lightly, set a timer for 60 seconds/1 minute. Don’t start the timer yet! Just get it set and ready to go. As Soon As that pots contents start to fully boil, a decent rolling boil, give it one last Quick stir and start your timer. Let it boil for that one minute. It’s go time. Take a deep breath, cross yourself, take a sip of water, whatever ya gotta do cause once that timer goes off it’s go time and you’re not stopping until those cookies are scooped! When your timer goes off, immediately remove your pot from the heat and turn your heat off. Grab your large tablespoon and scoop out spoonfuls of the mixture into your covered (or uncovered) countertop. Scoop until pot is empty. If you need to, use your rubber spatula to scrape around the edges of the pit as needed. At the end, on the last cookie, I usually get an ugly cookie. That’s OK, because that’s my tester cookie. That’s the one that I’m gonna eat when it’s cooled off to make sure that it tastes right! 😂 So if you get an ugly one too, it’s ok! They’re delish! Heck, I eat it when it’s still warm and gooey! You can too! I won’t tell! Just like you aren’t gonna tell anyone this recipe, RIGHT?? 😂 Anyway, let cookies cool totally and then you can pop them off the counter and put them in a Tupperware container. I will warn you that if you are living in a particularly humid area, it can affect the consistency of your cookies. I’ve had really humid days caused my cookies to not set fully although they tasted delicious. Still! These cookies taste great the same day, but be fully set and the tastiest, the next day because the oats have time to absorb any moisture.

Down below I’ll list the ingredients out so you can see them at a glance. This is basically my first time sharing a recipe on social media so I’m sorry if I could have written it better! I’d love to hear how they came out, if you try this! You’re gonna do Great!!

INGREDIENTS:

One stick, unsalted butter

1 3/4 cup white, granulated sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup milk

Pinch of salt

2/3 cup creamy peanut butter (Preferably skippy naturals creamy with honey, heavy handed 2/3 Cup)

One teaspoon imitation, vanilla extract

3 cup Quick oats, not old-fashioned!

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