I’m not sure what we did wrong- Too much chocolate? Crunchy peanut butter instead of creamy?
Either way they never dried out we have very tasty chocolatey peanut buttery moist turds.
Is there anything we can do to salvage them?
I say eat them all, and make a second batch!
(I doubt the problem is too much cocoa. Did you boil the mixture the full time?)
Melted the mixture on low, brought to rolling boil, removed from heat, blended peanut butter in, added oatmeal.
How weird, I just made a batch for my sister and dad today and the same thing happened. My family’s still trying to eat them, of course. 
When I halved the recipe and followed it, I’ve never had a problem. However when I did the normal amount today they wouldn’t set even after adding in more oatmeal towards the end when it all still looked a bit liquid.
My recipe says to let the liquid mixture boil for at least one minute. I might have messed up there because I was distracted. However, with all of the times I have halved the recipe the cookies have come out perfect.
It might be a little too late to save this batch but if it happens again I would suggest adding more oatmeal until you get a consistency that looks like will hold form.
A related question: What different names have you heard for those. I’ve encountered “Chewy Charlies”,“Preacher Cookies” and “Drop Cookies” in addition to the “No Bake Cookie” name. Ironically all in the same general area - Central Appalachians.
We grew up calling them Cow Patties. I had no idea they were called No Bake Cookies!
I’ve heard Drop and No Bake.
The funny thing is, except for being mushy, they are holding shape fine.
I was thinking of maybe balling them up and rolling in ground peanuts to see if that will make them more… truffle-y?
Wait, why would people call them drop cookies? Drop cookes need to be baked in every recipe I’ve ever read, like this one. In fact if you google “drop cookies 350F” and “drop cookes 375F” you get around 50,000 hits with baking directions for drop cookies.
I’m pretty sure it was that the mixture didn’t boil long enough and hot enough. I’ve seen this problem come up before and that’s the answer given. Something to do with the amount of heat needed to make some change in the sugar molecules? Or something like that.
Because we’ve made them–they’re my daughter’s specialty–with various different kinds of peanut butter and several brands/types of cocoa. The only times that they don’t come out perfectly are when she gets in a hurry.
Hope that helps!
I made those a couple of weeks ago, with Hershey’s cocoa powder, oatmeal, butter, crunchy peanut butter, vanilla, salt, and milk. They didn’t harden immediately. So I stuck them in the fridge downstairs for a couple hours and they turned out fine. :]
You did put them in the fridge, right?
If you did and they’re still mushy, I wonder if adding dried milk and/or powdered sugar will help. Of course, you’d have to put them all back into a bowl and re-drop them…
You get 15,800,000 from “drop cookies no bake” but I’m not sure if a hit count is relevent.
It isn’t that the peanut butter was crunchy, because I always use crunchy with no trouble.
I’d still look at not boiling long enough/having accidentally used too much milk. Because the boiling is supposed to drive off a lot of the moisture from the milk AND do whatever it is to the sugar so it resets.
Another thought: how’s your weather? Because if it’s really humid, you can pick up way too much moisture that way. Even the oatmeal could have sucked up a lot of extra moisture, and then while the cookies are cooling they’d get more.
Is your freezer self-defrosting? If so, you could try putting the cookies in there for a day or two, in some open container so they’d lose some moisture. (Sort of intentional ‘freezer burn.’)
Another idea is to buy a half gallon of vanilla icecream, let it soften for a while, mix in the cookies (likely breaking them into chunks as you go), then refreeze. Gourmet cookie dough ice cream!
I’ve often heard these cookies called “Pooh Bears” here in the North East.
Also, some weeks ago in another thread someone mentioned “Funeral Cookies” – so called because you could whip them up really fast when you need to take them to a wake or whatever. They didn’t give recipe details, but it sounded like they were talking about these.
Yet another thought – sorry for the triple post.
Did you use something besides ‘ordinary’ stick butter or margerine? Something whipped or low calorie or ‘lite’ or with ‘added XXX oil’ or whatever? Those can cause problems in baking.
My mother used to make sugared walnuts. Basically you cook up butter and brown sugar and coat walnuts in it. Anyway, she made them with no problems for years, and then one year she had a batch where the sugar stuff never crystalized and she had a gooey, sticky mess on her hands. A second batch had the same problem. It was only then that she noticed the ‘brown sugar’ wasn’t really just brown sugar. It was some ‘new and improved’ version (read, cheaper) that wasn’t pure cane sugar.
The boiling of the sugar mixture is to create a soft crack candy stage in the sugar. That, I believe, is what helps the cookies to firm up and hold together.
Also, make sure you use pure cane sugar. Beet sugar can do some really odd things.
For a few years, I didn’t pay attention to the sugar I used in baking and could NOT figure out why my cookies all tasted stale. There was always a musty essence to them and it was driving me nuts. I know how to bake and I’ve always been very successful with my baked goods.
I was discussing this with my mother (who really knows how to bake) and she asked me what kind of sugar I was using. I told her and she said “Oh, no. Always use C&H because it’s pure cane sugar.” That really threw me. So, I went to my cabinet and checked the sugar and it was beet sugar. The next time I made cookies, I make sure to use pure cane sugar and voila! Delicious cookies with no weird musty/stale flavor.
We’ve never ever put our no-bakes in the fridge.
I’m thinking it must have been not boiling long enough.
No ideas on why they didn’t turn out, but in my family they are called “Chocolate Mystery Drops”
We kids were picky, and it made us eat stealth peanut butter and oatmeal.
:dubious:
Bake them?:rolleyes: