My mother made me the most wonderful cookies as a child, Chocolate Peanut butter no bakes. I asked her to make these for every birthday celebration at school so I could proudly hand these out to my friends. They brought chocolate chip cookies or cupcakes, but no one ever brought anything like these and I was so proud that I brought something different and so scrumpdittilyumptious. After I graduated from college and was to become a mother myself, my mom gave me the recipe! I felt like I had really become a woman. Not getting the dipolma, not being pregnant but I had the real no bake recipe from my mother.
I made them and Score, they were wonderful. Years pass, my kids love these same cookies. They request the cookies, I start making the cookies for family affairs because my mom had switched to low fat peanut butter and the cookies did not make the change to low fat well, they would never harden and they became globs of oats and choco-peanut butter. I was happy to take over something that made me so happy and now I was part of a legacy that brought me hippie happiness. And you would think that would be the end of this tale and we move on to the recipe. But I must digress.
I knew when I went Gluten Free that the recipe for mom's no bakes would only need minor brand tweeks in order to be gluten free because the cookie themselves are flourless-- score. For the last two years my uncle would tell how when he was in school, they had no bakes but they did not have chocolate in them but they were peanut butter only. I had seen them in the bakery of Kroger but I would never think about it again until after I made my "normal" kind. That was until Easter. My uncle had just done a nice thing for us (which is not unlike him, he does nice things for everyone all the time) so I made a point to look up how this OTHER no bakes were made. Come to find out all I had to do was not put in the cocoa. Same exact recipe I had been using for 14 years from my mother minus cocoa. Take heel of my palm and smack my forehead-- duh.
Digression over-- they are the best cookies I have ever eaten. Better than the cookies of my childhood. They are peanut butter goodness. Don't believe me? Here is the recipe for you to try and let me know or tell me how you do it differently. One thing I have learned is that one little change to thirty years of something great can lead to something even better. Feel free to comment on the recipe.
Recipe:
First Section:
Heat on med (4/5 on my stove)
1/2 cup milk
1 stick of real butter (until butter is melted)
then add
2 cups of sugar (stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar completely but not to caramelize. If the sugar does not dissolve the cookies taste gritty). Turn off the heat and add
1/2 cup Peanut Butter (I prefer crunchy to add more crunch to cookie but creamy does work)
1 tsp of vanilla
Stir until peanut butter is dissolved. Remove from heat and add
3 cups of Gluten Free Oats ( I add one cup at a time and stir in)
Spoon mixture onto wax paper and let dry. Will make approxiametly 40 cookies depending on the size of your spoonfuls.
