Mom’s Easy Chocolate No-Bake Oatmeal Cookies

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Ingredients:

• 1 stick of unsalted butter
• 2 cups of sugar
• 2 Tbs. cocoa powder*
• ¼ cup peanut butter
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 2 cups of oatmeal (I prefer quick oats but old fashioned oats work too)

Cookware:

• A large nonstick skillet/pan
• Tinfoil

Instructions:

1. Place 2 large pieces of foil on the countertop. Place a large skillet on top of the burner but don’t turn it on yet.

2. Add butter, sugar, cocoa powder, peanut butter, milk, and vanilla extract (so everything but the oatmeal)

3. Turn stovetop to medium/medium-high, stirring the entire time while ingredients melt together.

4. Bring to a slow boil for 2 minutes while stirring the whole time. Do exactly 2 minutes. Set a timer! If you go over you crystallize the sugar, and you get a very crumbly more gritty cookie. It still tastes good but the texture isn’t at its best. If you go under 2 minutes, your cookies won’t harden up and will stay gooey. Again, still tastes good but they’re just hard to pack up to take anywhere and hard to store in a container for later because they will stick together.

5. After 2 minutes, remove the pan from the heat and add your 2 cups of oatmeal. Stir until thoroughly mixed.

6. Immediately dip out cookie size portions onto your tin foil. Your cookies will not be a perfect cookie shape. They all will harden into different ’roundish’ shapes and sizes. My family likes to eat them when they are still hot with a spoon so I always put them out on a paper plate.

7. It will take at least an hour for cookies to harden and cool. I often leave mine until morning with just a paper towel over them. Then I put them into a plastic container with a lid. If your cookies don’t ever harden all the way than you didn’t boil long enough. If they get hard and brittle pretty fast than you went a tad too long.

*If you don’t like or can’t have chocolate, you can omit the cocoa powder and add another spoonful of peanut butter to make a peanut butter cookie. Also very good!*

About This Recipe

“Mom, will you make it?” and before I could finish she would answer, “I suppose,” and off she would go to whip up the quickest, most chocolaty, delicious dessert I’ve ever had!

Every evening I would lay on our floral print couch full of tans, browns, and orange colors – a color scheme I’m thankful never made its return! However, to a nine-year-old girl tucked inside her favorite blanket, a cream-colored afghan throw my grandma had made, that spot on that couch was home. Pair that with my mom’s famously easy and crave-worthy after-dinner ‘dessert,’ well you couldn’t find a happier kid in town!

It was cold this particular night. The kind of cold you get in the early months of the year in a small town in Indiana. Staying warm inside with the wood stove roaring was a must! I didn’t and still don’t like the cold, but I enjoyed the evenings as a family tucked safely away indoors that the cold winter months would bring.

After dinner, we all gathered around our turn knob TV, which I was usually the remote for. Each family member settled into their ‘spot,’ where we all anxiously awaited the next episode of our favorite sitcom to start. It didn’t take long for one of us to say, “Mom, will you make Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies?” Per usual, before we even got all the words out, my mom replied, “I suppose,” and off she went to whip up the yummiest chocolaty goodness there ever was.

Those evenings were some of my happiest times as a child. The smell of the woodstove, which my parents still have today, combined with the smell of these cookies made me feel safe and loved.

Now I’m the mom, and just like my mom and all the moms before us, this one simple recipe has become a weekly tradition and favorite of everyone in the house. I get the same question now from my kids: “Mom, will you make it?” I always cut them off and say, “I suppose.” Creating a homey, relaxing evening atmosphere for my kids as I had is important to me and only feels complete with a yummy home-cooked treat. This is a tradition I know my kids will pass on to their kids one day.

I don’t think this cookie would’ve made it this far or had so many moms so quickly agreeing to make it if it weren’t for the easiness to make and the hardness to mess up! So do you want to wow your kids or impress at the next family gathering with something new? Do you prefer to be able to read all the ingredients of what goes into your food? Do you dislike a long, time-consuming, hard to follow, messy recipe? Is baking not your strongest area in the kitchen, but you love cookies? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this quick, yummy, gooey, chocolaty cookie is a must-try!

This no-bake recipe (Did I mention no bake yet? Yep, even better!) for Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies (don’t let the word oatmeal fool you) now brings that same sense of security, homeyness, and tradition to my kids that it did for me. Hopefully, it does the same for your family! Enjoy!

This story was written by Tiffany King from Marion, Indiana. Be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter to our best stories.

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