When I was visiting my friend in Arizona we wound up in Flagstaff for lunch. The place that we went had a big assortment of yummy, vegan sweets and K stocked up. Her favorite of the assortment was a no-bake, vegan, peanut butter cookie. She found a recipe online for a three-ingredient version that we decided that we had to try out.
Three Ingredient, No-Bake, Vegan Cookies
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter (recipe calls for natural, unsalted)
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 2 cups rolled oats
Combine the peanut butter and maple syrup in a bowl. Microwave in 20 second increments, whisk in-between until it is well combined. Continue to microwave in 20 second increments until the mixture begins to dry out (4-7 times). Add the oats, form into cookies, freeze to harden.
For an added peanut butter cookie touch, we used a fork to flatten the cookies (cute right?).
I love how simple these cookies were to make. I love that you didn’t even need the stove, you just use the microwave to do your “cooking.” They were pretty yummy, but I do think the “dough” tasted better when it was warm. If you are vegan and you are looking for something for your sweet tooth, this might be a good option for you.
I was interested to know what other no-bake vegan cookie recipes might entail, so I did a little googling and found this!
Peanut Butter-Chocolate No Bake Cookies
This is a chocolate/peanut butter cookie (click header for link). It has coco powder, so you still get the gluten free thing, but you get a little bit of the body that you would get from a cookie that has flour in it. You also use a little bit of coconut oil and some solid chocolate, which both add a bit of fat and I would think create a creamier texture.
I found about four variations on this same recipe, some used sugar instead of maple syrup, and one used coconut milk instead of almond (or other non-dairy milk). I can see myself trying this out in some form.
No-Bake, Not-Vegan Cookies?
So, then I started to wonder (as one would) what a non-vegan no-bake cookie would entail. Spoilers: the recipes that I found were pretty much the same as the vegan cookies but included some form of milk and/or butter. So whatever kind of milk you decide to use (or skip) and whatever kind of fat would be the variables between a vegan and a non-vegan cookie. But all the no-bake cookie recipes that I looked at omitted eggs and flour (no surprise there!).
Since it’s starting to warm up, this may be a fun area of sweets-making to explore without having to turn on the oven (when it isn’t an ice cream experiment day at least).
Has anyone else tried any no-bake vegan baking? Do you have a favorite recipe or trick?
It reminds me of this no bake dough that we use to make as kids. In kindergarten they use to let us make alphabet shapes out of it and then eat it for a snack after we were done. I remember it had peanut butter, oats and Karo syrup but I think also something else. I’ll have to see if mom has it in her recipe stash.
I was remembering the Barbie energy balls with peanut butter and wheat germ. I found some recipes for something like that, they all used powdered milk. I thought that the chocolate-peanut butter cookies sounded more interesting though.
These are so delicious I can’t get enough of them! In fact I am starting to look like a giant cookie
No chance, that’s just your welding outfit.
Those look so good. Growing up, one of the neighbors on the cul de sac used to make them for the kids in the neighborhood and would pass them out when she saw us outside playing. So that’s my memory of no bake cookies.