Level: Easy

Makes: 42 Cookies

Ingredients:
8 Tablespoons Butter (1 Stick)
1/2 Cup Milk
2 Cups Sugar
1/2 Cup Cocoa
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Peanut Butter
3 Cups Old-Fashioned Oats

Tools:
1 Saucepan
1 Spoon
1 Tablespoon or Medium Cookie Scoop
Wax Paper

Directions:
Combine butter, milk, sugar, and cocoa in a saucepan over medium-low heat.

While butter is melting lay out 3-4 feet of wax paper on a counter/table. If you don’t have enough room, try placing wax paper on sturdy plates and keep them somewhere relatively close. Measure out peanut butter.

Once butter is melted, stir mixture until smooth. Bring mixture to rolling boil. Once at a rolling boil, stir constantly for 2 minutes. Turn burner off and immediately mix in Vanilla. Be careful – it might bubble up! Next stir in peanut butter until mixture is completely smooth. Finally, stir in the oats until fully coated then remove from burner and scoop onto wax paper. You’ll want to work quickly since they start hardening quickly after taking off the burner.

For other variants on this recipe try using different types of nut butters, milk, and sugar. If you don’t like chocolate, forget the cocoa and substitute more nut butter. If you don’t like how chewy they are try mixing quick-cooking oats – though you’ll probably want to increase your measurements to 3.5-4 cups of oats. I’m still working on tweaking this to be vegan – I need to find a good butter substitute. To make this almost vegan I’ve found Coconut Milk and Almond Milk to be great substitutes. I’ve used Raw Sugar before too and it turned out well, but I’d recommend adding in about 1/4-1/2 Teaspoon of salt to help tame the extra sweetness. You could also leave the salt out until just after scooping the cookies. Before they have time to set up, top them with a little bit of salt – kinda like sea-salt caramel. There are tons of tasty variations!

Enjoy!