In January I promise to post some low-fat recipes to get in the New Year’s resolution diet mood, but until then it’s still December and I’m baking like there’s no tomorrow! The no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies come to me courtesy of my boyfriend’s grandma from Tennessee who I like to think of as the quintessential southern woman. Almost every time I’ve been over to her house she has a feast prepared, even if she’s only expecting a few people to come over! Brandon compares my cooking to hers all the time (That’s not how my grandmother makes it…), but that’s ok because she’s a great cook, so if I could be as good as her one day that would be a great compliment.
I’d never had these cookies until the first time I went over to her house and I think I must have eaten about 50 of them that day because now every time I go back she’ll tell me that she made my favorite cookies. She’s even sent us a big batch of them for Christmas in years past. ut since Brandon had forgotten to send her our new address and I knew we wouldn’t be getting any from her this year, I just had to whip some up myself. These things are so simple and fast to make, and it’s impossible to mess them up. I think that these cookies and Reese’s Peanut Butter cups are the reason why chocolate and peanut butter are my favorite combination.
She always does normal cookie-sized drops and that’s how I’ve made them in the past, but when I was mixing these together the other day I was trying to think of a creative way to take pictures of them (they are delicious, but not so pretty to look at). That’s when I had a flash of inspiration: they can easily be molded into any shape you want! So I got out my cookie cutters and poured directly into them and after they set I had these great-looking cookies!
One caveat is that you will need to use an open-ended cookie cutter. If you use the kind that is just hollowed out, I imagine they’d get stuck in there. You also have to have a lot of them because you have to leave the cookie cutters on there for structure until the cookies set (at least an hour to be safe). But it only takes about 10 minutes to mix this recipe up, so if you have a limited number of cookie cutters you could mix up half a batch and let those set and then mix up the other half so you can reuse the cookie cutters.
No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 3 cups quick oats
Process
In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, butter, chocolate chips, and milk and bring to boil. Cook for a minute.
Remove from heat and add the vanilla, peanut butter, and oats, one at a time, stirring well after each addition. The oats should be the last thing you add.
Quickly drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper and let set (1-3 hours).
If you are making shapes, spray the inside of your cookie cutters with non-stick spray and place them on wax paper. Spoon mixture inside the cookie cutter until it’s full. Don’t remove the cookie cutter until set or else the cookie will lose its shape. When set, gently slide off the cookie cutter.
Store in an airtight container.
My mom used to make these cookies for me when I was a kid. I loved peeling them off the wax paper when they were cooled. YUM
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oh my, i LOVED these when i was in school!!! i have been looking for a good recipe for them, so thanks! :))
I wonder how these would taste with dark chocolate.
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I love making these cookies-especially during this time of year 🙂 Yours are so cute-what a great idea to use the cookie cutters! Merry Christmas!
I love this idea and I collect cookie cutters so finally I can say yes I do NEED 400 cookie cutters!
Oh yes, definitely. After I made this recipe, I immediately thought what a great a excuse it was to go out and buy new cookie cutters!
Making these with cookie cutters is soooo cute! Normally we just follow the drop cookie method, but you’ve put a bit more effort into it. Brava!
That really looks delicious. I’d like to invite you to take some time to drop by at Foodista and share your delicious recipe with us. We have launched an online food and cooking encyclopedia ala wikipedia. Add a recipe and you can win a $100 gift card to Sur la table. Don’t forget to register first so we know who to thank the recipe for. Thanks!
How long do the cookies last? I mean how many days without spoiling good stand up?
I’d say these cookies last about 5-7 days as long as you store them in an airtight container.
can you make these without peanut butter?
No, I don’t think you can. If you just used the chocolate I don’t think the oats would stick together, that’s what the peanut butter does. But I assume you could substitute other nut butters (almond, etc.) if you can’t use peanut butter for some reason.
I used to have a recipe that didn’t call for peanut butter. They were great. This was 40 years ago. Didn’t see the peanut butter version until years later. No I can’t find just the choclate version anywhere
Meant to day Now I can’t find no No I can’t find
This was so easy and instead of useing simi choclate chips band vinella i used nuttella and alittle herseys syrup it was amazing my kid loved them 🙂 i like how it was easy to do thxs ps u should really try it its gd
WOW!!! What an amazing idea for an old family favourite. Will do that during our long hot summer Christmas holiday here in South Africa. But our recipe is a bit different. We use cocoa and no peanut butter. I recently bought 101 of those cookie cutters. Now I can justify it. Thanks!!!
This is almost identical to my grandmother’s recipe. She was a classic, Downeast Maine, New Englander! I think she got the recipe from a package when my mom was a kid (1940s). Definitely one of my favorites. A tip: Since this is a candy, really, you have to get the chocolate/butter/sugar/milk to boil just the right amount of time. If it boils too long, it does not “set” properly. When that happens, crumble it up and put it over ice cream! My mom did that once or twice. I drop by teaspoon into mini candy papers (the size of snack-sized Reese’s Peanut Butter cups), and include them in my tins of cookies at Christmas.
I added 4 tbs. cocoa, substituted 1/4 c. white chocolate, 1/4 c. butterscotch & 1/4 c. toffee morsels in place of semi sweet morsels. So Good!
Very good! I added some cinnamon chips. I’d say these cookies are the best oatmeal cookies so far. Great texture. I didn’t even use real butter!! I used corn oil margarine and they are still delicious.
I’m glad I was thinking about making some kind of sweets today with my 4 year old, we make these sometimes but haven’t made them with cookie cutters. We are going to try the cookie cutters, bc we have a bunch of them and ik she’ll have a lot more fun!