December 11, 2006 @ 8:03 am | Filed under: Best Gifts for Homeschoolers, Books, Food and Drink, Fun Educational Stuff
Possibly the nicest things ever invented, no? Cookies and books? Here’s my contribution to Jenn’s Awesome Virtual Cookie Exchange: my Aunt Cindy’s Saucepan Cookies.
Aunt Cindy, for the record, is my great-aunt, and her real name is Cinderella. I am not kidding.
These yummy morsels aren’t really holiday cookies, but I love them, and they’re easy (no baking!), and with oatmeal and peanut butter as the main ingredients, you can eat them for sustenance while you’re making Christmas cookies.
I couldn’t actually find my copy of Aunt Cindy’s recipe (Hush! I just moved in!), but I googled "oatmeal peanut butter saucepan cookies" and found several identical recipes. This one is from About.com (and I didn’t know that bit about making sure it boils hard for one minute, so aren’t you glad I Googled?):
No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
There’s just one trick; you have to make sure that the
sugar mixture boils hard for at least one minute, otherwise the cookies
will be sugary instead of creamy.INGREDIENTS:
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup cocoa
- pinch salt
- 1/2 cup butter
- 3/4 cup peanut butter
- 3 cups oatmeal
PREPARATION:
In
large saucepan, combine sugar, milk, cocoa, salt, and butter and mix
well. Bring to a boil and cover saucepan to allow steam to wash sugar
crystals down sides of pan. Boil mixture for 1 minute. Then remove from
heat and stir in peanut butter until smooth.Add oatmeal and mix well.
Drop mixture by spoonfuls onto parchment lined baking sheets or Silpat
sheets.* Let cool until you can touch the mixture; then reshape the
cookies to make them more a ball shape. Let cool completely; store at
room temperature. You can also pour this mixture into a 9" square pan
that has been greased with unsalted butter, let cool, then cut into
squares.
*We always dropped ours onto waxed paper.
As for the books, I thought new readers might like a look at the "Books We Love" series I ran on Bonny Glen last year. Lots of gift ideas there, which ties in with the "Best Gifts for Homeschoolers" thing I’ve been doing.
And don’t forget to drop by Jenn’s Journal for a list of all the other Cookie Exchange participants!
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Love the idea of eating them for sustenance while making the Christmas cookies.
Posted on December 11th, 2006 at 8:34 amOh, that’s one of the recipes I was looking for! Thanks!
Posted on December 11th, 2006 at 10:14 amOh, that’s one of the recipes I was looking for! Thanks!
Posted on December 11th, 2006 at 10:15 amThose sound great! And it’s all pretty much stuff I have on hand!
Posted on December 11th, 2006 at 10:19 amI love these cookies! They are one of my favorites, and I am always misplacing the recipe. Thanks so much!
Posted on December 11th, 2006 at 11:52 amYum, and easy too!
Posted on December 11th, 2006 at 1:44 pmThese look delicious! I can’t wait to try them!
Posted on December 11th, 2006 at 7:25 pmThey sound like the cookies we called “lava rocks” as kids. We always put them in the freezer after dropping them on waxed paper. I never thought about reshaping them into a more ball-like shape when they were cooler. I guess if we’d done that, we wouldn’t have called them lava rocks.
Posted on December 12th, 2006 at 2:01 pmoops, I forgot the link to my sister’s version of the recipe on our cooking blog: http://www.bettnet.com/blog/index.php/bella/comments/lava_rocks/
I love her commentary about what she’s thinking while making them.
Posted on December 12th, 2006 at 2:04 pmThanks for the recipe Missy. About an hour ago I remembered volunteering 2 dozen cookies tomorrow for the spouses group to put together cookie plates for the airmen in the dorms. Nice, easy & quick!!!
Posted on December 13th, 2006 at 6:46 pm