Chocolate Peanut Butter No-Bake Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why won't my no bake cookies get hard? ›

Why Didn't My No-Bake Cookies Set? Likely, you didn't boil the mixture long enough.

Boiling too long will cause the cookies to be dry and crumbly. However, if you don't boil long enough the cookies will not set and will be runny. Some folks say bring the mixture to a rolling boil and then count to 60, while others swear by counting to 90.

Why are my cookies dry and crumbly? This is most likely a classic case of using too much flour. It's crucial to properly measure the flour in this recipe, as even 1 extra tablespoon of flour can completely change the structure of the cookies. You also might have over baked them!

Whisk it up until it's smooth, and let it cook slowly, until the sugar has dissolved. You can tell whether the sugar has liquefied just by placing a drop or two on your fingertip, then rubbing it against your thumb. If it feels gritty or grainy, it's not quite there yet. It should feel silky-smooth.

Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly. The lack of moisture makes the cookies hard and dry, which makes them difficult to enjoy.

The science is simple: According to the flour authorities over at Bob's Red Mill, cornstarch can help “soften the rigid proteins of the flour, resulting in a light and chewy dessert.” “The cornstarch complements the flour in absorbing the liquids, but won't develop gluten structure like the flour will,” stresses ...

Not Boiling Long Enough: No-bake cookies typically involve boiling a mixture of sugar, butter, milk, and cocoa for a specified time. If you didn't boil it long enough, the cookies may not have reached the proper consistency. Try boiling the mixture for a bit longer next time.

Peanut butter

Peanut butter cookie / Main ingredient

This may not sound like a lot, but it is enough that it can affect the quality of your cookies – adding too much peanut butter can make them dry, hard, and crumbly.

If you don't flatten the cookies first, then the fork does double duty – it performs both functions. One very subtle result of creating the pattern is that the little tips of dough bake up crisper than the rest of the cookie, giving you both a bit of additional texture and deeper taste where the dough is more baked.

Why do my peanut butter cookies not taste like peanut butter? ›

The most common mistake with peanut butter cookies is using the wrong type of peanut butter. The BEST peanut butter for today's cookies is a processed creamy peanut butter, preferably Jif or Skippy.

Slightly underbaking cookies with brown sugar in them makes them softer as well. Just make sure to store brown sugar in an airtight environment so it doesn't dry out. Flour plays its part by contributing protein. The lower the protein, the softer your cookies will be.

If your no bake cookies are sticky and gooey, then they were not boiled quite long enough. On the flip side, if your no bake cookies are dry and crumbly, they were boiled a tad too long. You should let the mixture come to a full rolling boil and then time exactly 1 minute from there.

Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies. Why use melted butter? Melted butter creates cookies with a different texture compared to cookies made with softened or creamed butter.

Not Enough Flour

Though the culprit is usually a flour deficit, butter could also be to blame for this problem. Adding too soft or slightly melted butter to the dough can also result in flat cookies. Many bakers—my mom and myself included—heat the butter to soften it.

Oven temperatures are a crucial factor in baking. If your cookies consistently come out flat, you may have selected the wrong baking temperature. If you bake cookies using too much heat, the fats in the dough begin to melt before the other ingredients can cook together and form your cookie's rise.

Incorrectly measured ingredients can be the reason your cookies come out too thin. Too much sugar can cause cookies to come out flat and crispy instead of soft and chewy. This goes for both white sugar and brown sugar. Not enough flour could also be the culprit.