Saturday 12 April 2008

Soulmate Cookies


I'm thinking of changing the aim of this blog. Rather than being a general food blog of whatever I make, I'm thinking maybe I should just dedicate the whole thing to The Best Chocolate Cookie Recipes The World Has Ever Known. Because I just keep coming across them.

I'm not doing it on purpose. I don't even eat cookies anywhere near as much as I eat, say, cake (which is more or less my staple food group. Yes, I'm going to die young; why do you ask?). But somehow these recipes keep wandering across my computer screen, or else recipe books conveniently fall open on them, or else I'll be tidying my room (okay, I'm using artistic license on this one) and come across something I printed off aeons ago and happen to have peanut butter in the fridge that no one in our house eats.

Who am I to argue with fate?


Incidentally, yes, I am apparently incapable of taking photographs of entire cookies. I did try, and I did take a couple, but they just didn't make me happy. Boo. So then I started breaking cookies in half and eating bits and taking photos of that, and then I was extremely happy and also well on my way down the road to obesity.

Fate seems to have delivered me my soulmate. Unsurprisingly, it's edible.



So let me tell you about these cookies. It's important that you know how good these are. This information might just save your life one day. For starters, you don't even bake them, just melt a load of stuff on your stove top, so once they're cool and set the consistency is more like fudge; but it's not at all grainy, just gooey and melty and dsnkjfnjksn hang on a minute while I regain my composure. Secondly, they don't call for chocolate in the ingredients but somehow these are ridiculously chocolatey and mood-boosting. Thirdly, I was suspicious of peanut butter (I'm British, okay? Peanut butter is practically foreign to me) but it's not at all overwhelming, and the presence of oats means you can trick yourself that it's doing you good.

Can we recap here? No chocolate. Oats. I even used low-fat peanut butter (part of me obviously recognising that I would be eating about twenty in the space of ten minutes). This is practically a health food.


The recipe for these is from Fancy Toast (it hasn't been updated in ages, but I'll link to it anyway as it's far funnier than any of my blog posts and outstrips my photography by miles. You have to promise to come back, though? Don't go off marauding through Fancy Toast and forsake me, 'kay?) so obviously I've translated the recipe into metric.

No Bake Oatmeal Chocolate Fudge Cookies of Love (or just No-Bakies)
Recipe from Fancy Toast: American measurements here.
I got about 20 out of this.

115g butter
400g sugar
4 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
120ml milk
120ml peanut butter
282g quick oats

1. In a saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add next four ingredients and heat until the mixture comes to a boil. Boil for one minute, then remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter and oats.

2. Drop mixture by the spoonful onto a sheet of waxed paper, parchment paper, or aluminum foil. Allow no-bakies to cool until firm, approximately 20 minutes.

I'm taking these to a meal with friends tonight (yes, I do take my own food to meals X__X). I'm guarranteed to have a lot more friends by the end of it.


25 comments:

aforkfulofspaghetti said...

Heh. 'practically a health food...'
Yeah. Right. Keep on believin'. ;)

Anonymous said...

These look absolutely ridiculous. I love the no-bake idea alot and the oatmeal. Yumm-o

Sarah said...

These are my sisters FAVORITE cookies! She made them all the time when we were growing up and every time I eat them, I think of her. They are very tasty and yours look great!

Anonymous said...

I'm from the UK too, its always nice come across UK measurements! I'm curious as to waht type of oats would be quick oats though? Can you point me in the right direction?

Your blog is fantastic, you should be proud.

x

Nicole said...

Around here, we skip the peanut butter and add a cup of roughly chopped black walnuts. And forget the cooling stage! We eat it out of the pan with a spoon...

Food of the gods, baby. Food of the gods!

Anonymous said...

The Best Chocolate Cookie Recipes The World Has Ever Known!! sounds like a cool theme! :P no bakes! yea~ i shall try them~ *wink*

Amanda

Maria♥ said...

Indigo these are absolutely incredible!! There's no 2 ways about it, I must try these asap! Btw I have a book that is based solely on no bakes ;o)

Maria
x

Pixie said...

I can't bare to see this....I missed my date with peanut butter last week-well actually, I hated the cookies I made but these THESE LOOKS SO LUSH (I'm allowed to use that word from time to time)

grace said...

my family calls these "preacher cookies." i have no idea why. perhaps it's because they're so delicious, you end up spending a lot of time with your preacher, atoning for your overeating. :)

test it comm said...

I always enjoy drooling over chocolate cookie treats! These ones look great and they are so easy to make!! Bookmarked

bakeorbreak said...

These are one of my favorite cookies. So good, yet so easy. I made them once with Nutella instead of peanut butter, and those were equally good.

Anonymous said...

those. look. awesome.

a great source for fiber!

Carolyn said...

These look great and so easy to make thank you for sharing

Abitofafoodie said...

You really have to stop posting these great chocolate cookies recipes. I'm holding you entirely responsible for my expanding waistline, you realise (!!) These look pretty fabulous to me.

skoraq cooks said...

I used to prepare similar cookies when I was a student, but I have never tried them with peanut butter. It's the highest time to try it :-)

I love those cookies. They are very tasty, cheap and easy to prepare.

Anna said...

Thanks everyone for commenting!

Hannah - I'm not certain over the oats thing, but I can give you this link: http://www.recipezaar.com/library/getentry.zsp?id=465. I just used what we had in the cupboard, which happened to be Scott's Porage Oats (I assume these are regular rolled oats) - to be honest, I shouldn't think it makes that much difference. But I hope this helps! And thanks very much ^__^

Elocin - I have to admit, I'd probably have got a lot more cookies out of it if the pan/spoon idea hadn't occured to me...

Maria - I hope this means no-bake recipe posts from you! One of my foodie friends is oven-less at the moment so she'd be over the moon XD. Take pity on us!

Jennifer - I LOVE the nutella version (I actually posted a link to this on Livejournal and someone suggested nutella, so I pointed them to your post XD). Phwoarr.

RecipeGirl said...

Hey, I love these kind of desserts- especially for the kiddos. This is something they can help make and you don't have to worry about the oven! Perfect!

Mama Mia said...

hahahha u crack me up. I want these cookies now!

Anonymous said...

Gosh, they look so gooey! And chocolatey without chocolate? Fer real?? This I gotta try! :D

Rosie said...

Oh my word I must shut my eyes from temptation .... no I can't I am so weak against chocolate ;)

Your cookies look absolutely stunning and yummy!

Rosie x

Memaw's memories said...

Here in the states, we call them Mud or Mississippi Mud cookies. I grew up eating these here in Arkansas.

I made a batch about two weeks ago. Didn't share them with anyone.

You have a great blog.

Anonymous said...

Health food eh? I'm used to using huge amounts of butter in the divine chocolate brownies I make, but measuring the sugar made my eyes bug out of my head, crikey it's a lot!!

Anyway, they're currently cooling. Do I need to refrigerate these? Or just keep them at room temperature?

Anna said...

Gemfyre - I'm so glad you made them! I'm probably too late replying to this to be any help, but I kept them in the fridge until they were completely cool and then found they were fine just in a tin/ airtight contatiner at room temp. But I'd keep them in a fairly cool place (in a cupboard or out of the sun and so on). Hope you enjoy them!

Anonymous said...

Hello
I am going to make these for my birthday picnic.

What sort of sugar do you mean?

thank you

AP

Anna said...

AP - just regular caster sugar (or granulated sugar if you're American I think). I hope you like them!