– An Easy Spread –

I enjoy toying around with quick and easy recipes now and then to add a little flavor to college life. I live off campus, so when I set the kitchen on fire, my dog loves the results of any first attempts…he takes it black and charcoaled.

This recipe is from an old cookbook that was found while my family attempted to clean out the pantry. Our oven broke one morning, so my mother decided that it was a great opportunity to clean out the shelves. She hoped that we would find some new recipes that did not require an oven. And so we did. This was one of the few desserts we found that could be made without baking… just like the title implies. It was my first attempt at a dessert not made from a box.

NO BAKE COOKIES

Needed:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup raw Hershey’s cocoa
1/2 cup butter/margarine
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups quick cooking oatmeal
Wax paper, Stove top, Stove pot, mixing bowl, stove mixing spoon (or a whisk works very well), two small spoons, and a clean cleared place to lay down the cookies to cool.

Directions:

1)Make sure your pot is big enough to hold all of the ingredients or have a container on the side that’s big enough to mix everything (make sure it won’t melt – hot ingredients are going to be poured in)

2) Measure everything out before starting. This will keep you from scrambling around half way through making the cookies just to realize you don’t have any oatmeal on hand. (This has happened before, can you tell?)

3) Turn stove to a high setting, it really does not matter the level just as long as it gets good and hot.

4) For the butter, I recommend cutting a pre-measured stick into pieces and dropping them into the pot to melt. If not using a stick, throw it in and let the butter melt. You can add the milk to help too.

5) Add the sugar and cocoa into the pot. Stir with stove spoon or whisk. This is where most things can go wrong if you’re not careful! Watch the stuff, and wait until it starts to bubble on the sides. When this happens, keep close to the stove. Stir every thirty seconds or so until the dark liquid bubbles in the center of the pot too (It is a dark liquid at this point right?). If the contents of the pot  are going to overflow or begin to smell funny, turn the heat down a bit, but do NOT stop stirring. If you see dark foam its okay, its part of the chemistry. Once it starts to bubble in the center, stir constantly for ONE WHOLE minute then switch the stove off.

6) Stir the peanut butter and vanilla extract in. Once this is completely melted together, pour it into that big bowl I was talking about earlier. Add your oats and stir.

7) Now relax, the hard part is over (unless you have terrible aim with placing cookie dough onto a sheet). Lay out the wax paper where you have cleared space for cooling.

Scoop some of the dough onto one of the small spoons. Place the dough onto to sheet, using the other small spoon to scrape it off (I’ll wait cause I know you left the second small spoon near the stove on the other side of the kitchen).

9) Once you’ve placed all of the dough onto the wax paper, start cleaning. These cookies take around thirty minutes to set, so you might as well get them pots and measuring cups cleaned.

I hope you enjoy the recipe, It has saved me time and time again in those “I need it today, sorry I didn’t tell you sooner” bake sales.

Guest writer Mary Hatfield is a sophomore majoring in electrical engineering at George Mason University in Virginia. In her spare time, she likes to cook and watch good cinema for her minor in film studies.