No preamble, just steps. I will explain later
Everything you will need:
Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 stick (8 tablespoons) salted butter
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Large pinch kosher salt
Equipment:
Large Saucepan
Parchment or wax paper
Steps:
In a large saucepan on medium heat add:
1/2 cup of milk
1 stick of butter
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
Stir/ whisk until fully mixed.
Bring to a boil and let boil for 1 minute
Remove from heat,
Add:
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 large pinch of salt
1 cup peanut butter
3 cups oats
Spoon onto parchment or wax paper, let cool for 30 minutes.
Done!
Keep cookies in the refrigerator or freezer and enjoy!
Ok, now let's discuss
It always bothered me that these are called "no-bake" cookies because you still have to heat them up. If anything it's more work.
Why do we have to heat them up? Good question I'm so glad you asked. With normal cookies, the gluten in the flour gives structure as the cookie bakes. With no gluten, we need something else to help hold the cookie shape. There are a few things in this recipe that help with that:
Butter - we melt it, but once it returns to room temperature it will solidify
Peanut butter - same idea as the butter
Caramelized sugar.
The reason we need to heat this cookie dough (batter?) is so that we can caramelize (read: slightly burn) the sugar that we added. When sugar melts it turns to caramel which has a solid, gooey structure. That's the key to these cookies. It's also possible to caramelize the sugar too much and get a burnt flavor in the cookies - that's why we only boil for 1 minute.