I am not exactly sure why but I have always loved these things. I have eaten them my whole life.

NO BAKE CHOCOLATE OATMEAL COOKIES

2 cups sugar
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup Pet milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups oats

In a medium saucepan, combine all ingredients except peanut butter and oats and cook over medium heat. Let boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter and oats.

Spoon out quickly onto wax paper or aluminum foil. Cookies will harden as they set.

Looks easy enough! Will have to try them.

I told my Mom about the recipe, and shes gonna make em.

When I make these they never last long. I LUV no bakes.

Ive never had a no bake cookie unless you include me always eatin the dough. haha.

I just made a batch. They came out a little dry. I am not sure if I got the proportions wrong (I usually don't measure) or if I lost count on the oatmeal and added too much. When my mother made them they came out exactly the same every time and she never measured anything. That is probably the problem, the oats are the only thing I measured so I should have gone by texture of mix, not volume.

Maybe Redbeans could compare this recipe to her's and see if the liquid to dry matches.

Love them thanks for the recipe...

Darlin' give me time to dig out my recipe an I'll compare for u. But sounds like u just got abit to much oatmeal in it. That seems to happen to me sometimes even when I do measure. I try to add in the first 2 cups first then add the last one alil at a time an mix. If it looks like it's gettin abit on the dry side I don't add anymore even if I've not added the full last cup.

Yep, that's what I thought... a little too much oatmeal.
Thanks for the help.

Change the recipe to

Add 2-1/2 cups oatmeal at end and stir.
Add in small additional amounts of oatmeal if mix appears too wet.
Final product should be thick and adhere together well. Oatmeal should be well coated.

Glad I could help

I bet they were still good....

You bet. It didn't change the flavor, they just didn't hold together very well.

"An that's the way the cookie crumbles"

hee, "the cookie crumbles"

Can you use regular skim milk instead of pet milk?

I've made these since I was a little kid. Love em!!! For a change of flavor you can do some fun things like...add 1 cup peanut butter..I use chunky but it doesn't matter. Around cristmas, add crushed candy canes. Add chocolate chips or marshmellows.

When you cook protein it becomes a glue. Pet milk is evaporated to one half the volume of skim milk. (if I recall correctly) If you were going to get the same amount of protein to act as a binder you should add enough powdered milk to make the same amount of liquid.

So 1/2 cup skim milk plus powdered milk to make 1/2 cup (without liquid) should equal 1/2 cup evaporated. I have a conversions book somewhere so I'll check this later.

I have made these for yrs, on of the kids favorites.. I always used reg low fat milk, didn't have any problems.. just adjust the oatmeal if too soft... and I do love them with the chunky peanutbutter!! Used to send these to my daughter when she was in the navy.. They do travel well...

I did some research on the web. I was amazed at how many variations on this recipe I could find, and a lot of comments. Several people said to only boil the mix for for a couple of minutes or the cookies will break apart like mine did. One lady said she used skim milk and (like silverfox) it works just fine. Some recipes just call for milk.
Some recipes call for the peanut butter to go in the pot and some at the end with the oats.

I think I will make another batch and substitute 1/2 cup coconut for the peanut butter, use skim milk instead of Pet, and just boil it for a few minutes. I'll then pay attention to the oats going in like RedBeans suggested to get the "goo factor" correct.

Hmmm. I bet some chopped pecans wouldn't hurt.

I kept burning myself on my other batch because I couldn't wait for them to cool to eat them.

OH and here are two variations I thought were interesting. If you don't want them to be so sweet, reduce the sugar to 1-1/3 cups.

If you want a sweeter cookie, leave out the coco powder and add 1/2 cup chocolate drink mix (I suspect the mix is mostly sugar).

One more thing. I any sure some are dieing to know what I did with almost a cup of "cookie crumbles" from my last batch. I ate them as breakfast cereal. Capt'n Crunch meets Count Chocula.

Someone asked for these today so I am raisin the dead.

This isn't what I wanted

I want the peanut butter ones, with oatmeal and and the clear syrup (Karo) I think


But thanks Metalwing