It started… well I don’t remember when it started, so it must’ve started before I was old enough to remember things. So, let’s just say that my love for no-bake cookies originated in the womb, maybe my mother ate them while she was carrying me for those dreadful nine months in 1989. But there are two things I know for sure, I was born with an omnipresent “sweet tooth” and that nothing satisfies that “sweet tooth” like no-bakes.
Most mothers would freak out if their ornery six year-old son was even in the small kitchen of a double-wide trailer with a hot burner on, let alone a six year-old working over the hot burner preparing cookies. But that’s where I was. I always wanted “nuttin’ cookies.” (Oh, that’s another thing about the six-year old version of me, I couldn’t speak very well. At the age of six I was probably closer to Toe-wey Ba-toon than Cory McCune. So I couldn’t pronounce my favorite food and basically renamed them altogether turning no-bake into nuttin.)
Mom taught me how to make my own batch at such a young age because; quite frankly, she got sick and tired of making them for me all the time. You might be thinking, “Why didn’t she just not let him have any?” and that’s a good question. But the six year-old version of me was determined, plus I had a grandma and aunt living next door that had the recipe for these dessert table masterpieces too. So if mom didn’t make me any I would walk the 100-200 feet over to grandma’s front door and get my nuttin’ cookies no matter what. In defense of my mom, she didn’t allow me to make a full batch very often. No, like most home-school mothers, she tried to make it a school assignment making me make half a batch and therefore forcing me to use my math skills to finish my cookies.
I can’t remember when I learned to make those sweet, brown chunks of goodness; all I know is that that day may be the greatest day of my life. I’m not really sure what it is about no-bakes that have me so addicted. I mean, a lot of cookies, desserts and snacks have peanut butter, sugar and chocolate, but none of them have the grip on me that no-bakes do. That’s part of the reason I believe my relationship with them consists of so much more than nuttin’. There is something more than just the warm, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate, the gooey taste of hot peanut butter and the chewy oats texture.
However, there are times I wish I wasn’t so addicted to no-bakes and any other sweets for that matter. From the ages of six to twenty I was heavily involved in sports. In fact the only thing you were more likely to see in my hand than a cookie was a ball, whether it was a baseball in the summer, a football in the fall or a basketball in the winter. Due to all the physical activity these sports require I was always active and in good shape. Therefore, I never had to worry about what I ate because I would run it off the next day. But after seventeen years of baseball my left shoulder started to give way I had to forego my last two years of college eligibility, and with my playing days so too did the desire to stay in shape. Unfortunately, just because my workouts stopped my craving for sweets didn’t and fat started to gather around my mid-section. I thought for a while I would just cut back on sweets, but that is easier said than done. So I have started working out and running again because I don’t want to be separated from something that is such a fixture in my childhood and in my life, but I want to be ready if the chance to play one of my favorite sports pops up again.
I, as a snack food junky, admit that a large percentage of the times I make no-bakes it is to get sugar into my mouth in the quickest and tastiest way possible. I don’t even have to look up the recipe; in fact I’m not sure that I have ever laid eyes on a proper recipe, I’ve made these delectable treats from memory for as far back as I can remember. There was always the occasional shout to my mom to ask how much of a certain ingredient to add, which over the past few years has been replaced by mom asking me the same questions since I have become the no-bake aficionado in the family. A few months ago while I was at work I got a text from my mom asking how much milk to add to her batch of no-bakes, I was able to help, but the rest of the shift was torturous knowing that when I got home I would get nuttin’ cookies. When I am really hankering for no-bakes I resort back to my primal state and nuttin’ once again replaces the cookies’ proper name.
Oddly enough, no-bakes were a launching pad, not the end of the road. After a few years of making no-bakes I wanted something more, something challenging. So I learned to make chocolate chip cookies, snicker doodles, cakes, brownies and other desserts. But none of those have eclipsed no-bakes. Maybe my love for no-bakes can’t be beat because they are the foundation of the enjoyment I receive from making desserts and now actual meals in the kitchen. There is an old saying that says, “Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.” Well I never liked fishing like my brother and the other neighborhood boys, instead I learned to bake and cook, and it all started by (not) baking no-bakes. Maybe I need to write a new saying for myself, something like “give a boy with a sweet tooth a cookie and he’ll be happy for a minute, teach a boy with a sweet tooth to bake and he’ll be happy for a lifetime (albeit a short lifetime).”
But even though no-bakes are easy and fast to make I still think there is something more, something possibly psychological that ties me to them. It may be because it is something I could do before my older brother. We are 18 months apart, we are both boys, we always did everything together and we are super competitive against each other. So much so that when he asked me to be his best man at his wedding and give a speech the thing that I felt best represented him and his relationship to me is competition (which, for boys led to several fights that were hilarious to relive). But deep down I have to admit that I look up to my brother, he is one of my heroes and that has always been the truth. So imagine the pride I had as a seven or eight year-old when my big brother had to ask me to make cookies for him. Throughout my life there haven’t been many times my older brother has had to ask me for help, Spanish class in high school comes to mind but that’s about it other than the help he needed in the kitchen. During his senior year of high school he wanted to impress his girlfriend (now wife, so it must’ve worked) by baking cookies for her. As I walked by the kitchen it was obvious that the only flirting he was accomplishing as flirting with utter failure. So, as the loving brother I am, I sat down at the bar, open my newest Sports Illustrated and watched as my flustered older brother struggled to understand the simple instructions to chocolate chip cookies. When, to my surprise, he actually asked me for help. At first I couldn’t decide whether to help or to just continue enjoying his failure. The loving brother in me won the battle (that or I didn’t want him to hurt me) and I helped him. Heck, I didn’t even tell his girlfriend I had to help him make the cookies; I let him take all the credit. I guess that means I played a role in helping him land the girl of his dreams and it all started with no-bakes.
Well, so far the stories haven’t helped me put a finger on the exact reason why these cookies with inexact ingredients are so important to my life. Maybe going through the steps will help me remember. But even if it doesn’t help me figure it out, it will help you by teaching you how to make the greatest cookies known to man.
Ingredients:
· 8 tablespoons (1 stick) of butter.
· 2 cups of sugar.
· ¼ a cup of milk.
· 3 tablespoons of cocoa
(note: this is where I get tricky and just guess)
· ¼ a cup of peanut butter (depends on how much you like peanut butter, I generally just spoon it out until I’m happy.)
· 3 cups of oats (or just until you have enough to get the cookies to set up)
As with making anything in a house in which you don’t do the shopping the most important step is to make sure you have all the ingredients necessary to complete the recipe. Next, take a medium size sauce pan and put it over medium heat on the stove. Melt the butter in the pan while adding the sugar, cocoa and milk. While the mixture is cooking in the sauce pan get a sheet of aluminum foil or wax paper about 12-18 inches long and lay it flat beside the stove. Continue mixing while the butter melts and the mixture begins to bubble and boil. After it starts boiling continue mixing for another minute (that’s 60 seconds, a literal minute, not a figurative minute). Once the minute is up, remove from heat and quickly add the peanut butter. After the peanut butter is dissolved in the mixture add the oats. Once you have added enough oats so that the mixture is starting to solidify, begin spooning the cookies out onto the foil/paper. This is another place I like to switch things up. When I am just making cookies “to eat” as we say around our house I make the cookies big. However, if I am making them for some sort of occasion I make them smaller, so more people can enjoy them. After you have laid the cookies out on the paper/foil wait a few minutes to let them set up completely or they will be messy. If the cookies do not solidify you have two options. The first, and the one I go with, is to grab a spoon and scoop them into your mouth. The second is to slide the paper/foil onto a plate and put them in the refrigerator, sometimes the cold helps the cookies solidify when they may not at room temperature.
One warning and perhaps the only negative about making no-bake cookies is that they are pretty easy to mess up, especially when you are like me and don’t measure all the ingredients. I say “mess up” because it’s pretty much impossible to fail or completely screw up because the taste will always be great. But they can be super messy if they don’t set up. They can also be messy if they set up too hard and are too dry because then they get crumbly and you leave chocolate covered oats trail as if you’re trying to pull a move out of Hansel and Gretel. Nonetheless, no matter how crumbly or gooey, once the cookies reach your mouth the experience will be the same: fantastic.
Over the twenty-two years I have spent on this earth I have eaten thousands of no-bake cookies, which I would say makes me a no-bake expert. In fact, people who know me well will actually have me taste-test their version to see how it compares to the rest others I have eaten. I must say that the recipe that mom, me and my aunt use has to be the best of any that I have eaten. Many people add vanilla to their cookies and in my opinion it adds another flavor that isn’t necessary. This reminds me of another old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I know people may disagree, but I’m not trying to win any awards with my no-bakes, I’m just trying to satisfy my sweet tooth.
After much thought, I realized that I still can’t come up with one specific reason that no-bake cookies have had such a big impact in my life, beyond the fact that it is the best mixture of peanut butter and chocolate (yeah, that’s right Mr. Reese!). It is a combination of several things. The pride of doing something my older brother couldn’t; the ability to satisfy my needs for sweets whenever I would like to. Perhaps the most important reason lies underneath the surface, something ingrained deep into who I am as a person. When I boiling it down I guess my love for no-bakes is like the way I make no-bakes. There are no specific measurements; time-frame or a part that clearly stands out about the rest. But, one thing is certain about both, they are both so much more than nuttin’.
