Saturday, June 03, 2006

Look, Ma! No peanuts!




Unbaked Caramel Cookies

Better Homes and Gardens Cookies and Candies Copyright 1966

In a large saucepan, combine 2 cups granulated sugar, ¾ cup butter or margarine and one 6-ounce can (2/3 cup) evaporated milk. Bring mixture to a rolling boil, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and add one 3 5/8-ounce or 4-ounce package instant butterscotch pudding mix and 3 ½ cups quick-cooking rolled oats; mix together thoroughly. Cool 15 minutes; drop dough from teaspoon onto waxed paper-lined tray.

These take a while to firm up - I stored them in the refrigerator.

Makes about 5 dozen.
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The boiled cookie recipe I see most often (and the one my mother has always made) contains chocolate and peanut butter. Since we are nut-free due to my son's peanut allergy, I decided to try this recipe which doesn't contain any nuts or peanuts. For some reason, I had two boxes of instant butterscotch pudding in the cupboard and I still had quick oats in there from a hubby screw-up so that made this recipe even more enticing. Do I even need to mention the benefit of not having to turn on the oven? I loved not having to run the oven.

These were definitely extremely sweet but I thought they were extremely good too. It's hard to eat more than one at a time, but it isn't hard to keep coming back for another one every couple of hours. I'm definitely going to make these again. I may add them to my Christmas treat list.

This cookbook is another one of my yard sale finds. I think I paid an entire 50 cents for this beauty but it was well worth it, even though the pages have started to come loose. I love old cookbooks.

Question of the Day: Do you have any no-bake cookies suggestions for me?

5 comments:

Randi said...

have you seen the book One Smart Cookie? I checked it out of the library. Its by a Canadian Author and she has a lot of no-bake recipes. They are all supposed to be low-fat too, but I found them quite sweet.

Wanda said...

Not without nuts, unfortunately. Sorry.

The kids and I used to always make the chocolate/oatmeal/peanut butter ones. They are more like candy than cookies.

At Christmas time I make the ones that my grandmother used to make. They are called Angel Cookies, I think. Dates, rice crispies, pecans, etc. boiled and rolled in coconut. Yum!

Anonymous said...

The only no-bake cookies I can think of off the top of my head are the Chocolate Hay Stacks with Chinese noodles and chocolate chips. Unfortunately they have both peanut butter and nuts in them, so that won't work for you! But your Unbaked Caramel Cookies look great!

Randi said...

cookiemadness made one yesterday, it has only 1/2 cup nuts that you could leave out.

Anonymous said...

There's a cookie that's ALMOST a no-bake. I can't get to my recipe, since it's packed (ready for our move). But I left a cookbook out that has one that sounds like it, or at least similar. It's called Forgotten Cookies. Put in a preheated 350 oven, turn oven off, and take them out the next morning. I usually make them at Christmas.

Jan