No Bake Cookies

I made No Bake Cookies last night for the first time in years, one of my favorite cookie recipes as a kid. Since the only "baked" desserts I can make are those cooked on a stovetop, I'm always on the lookout for no bake recipes. The no bake cookie I made last night was the classic chocolate, peanut butter, and oatmeal variety, but after doing some research, I found recipes with other combinations of ingredients: crushed vanilla wafers or graham crackers, dried fruit, flaked coconut, instant coffee, chopped nuts. I was also thinking maybe rice crispies or white chocolate...hmmm. Endless possibilities!

Chocolate Oatmeal Raisin No-Bake Cookies
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cup uncooked oatmeal
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 raisins

Combine sugar, milk, butter, and cocoa in saucepan. Bring to full boil, stirring frequently. Let boil for 1 1/2 minutes without stirring. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter, oatmeal, vanilla, and raisins. Drop by teaspoons onto wax paper and let harden, about 1 hour.

For fun I did a little research on the no bake cookie history...

No-bake cookies
Food historians tell us unbaked confections composed of nuts, dried fruit, seeds and sweeteners were made by ancient Middle eastern cooks. "No bake" candies, as we Americans know them today, surfaced in cookbooks published during the Great Depression. Like their ancient counterparts, contemporary "No Bakes" contain dried/desiccated fruit, nuts, and/or seeds glued together with a sugar (honey, Karo) or fat (peanut butter, butter, margarine). No bake cookies (generally pressed into a pan and cut in squares/bars) descend from the same tradition. These recipes appear in the 1950s. The primary difference between bake and no bake' recipes (besides the obvious oven time, of course!) is the "no bakes" do not contain eggs or flour. They are not intended to rise.