Baked Sunday Mornings: The No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookie

While I like elaborate baking projects as much as (okay, probably more than) the next person, every once in a while it's nice to take on a recipe that requires almost no work whatsoever. That's exactly what was on tap this week for Baked Sunday Mornings: The No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookie. I suppose the fact that these cookies aren't actually baked is the reason the recipe isn't in the "Cookies and Bars" chapter of Baked Explorations, but in the "Confections and Pastry" section instead.

You can literally make these cookies in 5 minutes. Simply heat milk, sugar, cocoa powder, and butter on the stove until they come to a boil, boil for 90 seconds, and then stir in rolled oats, chunky peanut butter, and vanilla. Scoop out the dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets, cool, and refrigerate. I used a #40 scoop and got 30 cookies.

I have never made a no-bake cookie like this before, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Trying to describe these cookies leaves me at a bit of a loss: they taste like chocolate with crunchy peanut butter and oats. The texture of the chocolate-peanut butter mixture holding everything together is like fudge, but the oatmeal is plentiful and wonderfully chewy. They are are homely but quite delicious, and I found them absolutely addictive. Who knew that no bake could be all good?

Recipe: "The No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookie" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.