Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Valentine's Day Special #1 / No-bake fudgey Chocolate Peanut-butter cookies.

There are sometimes in life when Chocolate becomes a necessity. So much of a necessity that you consider getting a Continuous Ryle's Tube feeding of molten chocolate.

It could be post-breakup, especially when Valentine's Day and celebrity couples of amalgamated nomenclature and your late-teenaged neighbour flaunt their Two-Hearts-One-S***holeSoul status. It could be post-midnight, when all the shops selling candy (of the chocolate, not the substance-abuse variety) are closed. It could be post weddings of grandeur and younger cousins popping out babies; seats of higher-education or topnotch jobs gained. You're truly happy for them, but this gives you a fat nasty dose of Reality.

There's also another females-only situation.

Science recognizes this as the big M. Men may know this as a time in life where you've been forced to lie "you? Fat?! You're painfully skinny!" As for the women, I feel for you. I really do.

Apart from throwing back a couple of Meftal-Spas 500 and drinking black tea and doing your version of pranayamas, this is the only solution I have for you.

Load up on the carbohydrates, banish the bloat-inducing salt.

And by carbohydrates, I mean Sugar. Quite a bit of it. But there's also heaps of oats, peanut butter and milk, so it should cancel out, by the laws of Denial.

These No bake cookies require no oven. They require no eggs. They require no patience. And they taste bloody good. This is the closest I've got to Z's Fantastic Chocolate-Peanut Butter fudge, the ones I used to beg her to make (so good!) and not make (fattening). Of course, she would be outraged at the addition of oats.

This recipe is made out of pantry staples.


And if you close your eyes and add a little more salt, you can pretend these are Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Yum!

No-Bake Fudgey Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies:

(Adapted from Food Network)

Ingredients:

1-3/4 cups white, granulated sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1 cup peanut butter (smooth is preferred, I used chunky)
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
3 cups oatmeal (instant oats)
1/4 tsp salt (optional)

Method:

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, whisk together the sugar, butter, cocoa and milk. Place the pan over high heat.

Bring it to a foamy boil, and let it boil for exactly one minute.


If it isn't nicely reduced and fudgey, boil for 30 seconds more.

Whisk in the peanut butter, vanilla essence, salt (if using) first.


Add in the oats.


If the mix is too runny, you can add a couple of tablespoons of oats. If it's too stiff, thin it out with a teaspoon of milk or peanut butter.

Place scoops of cookie dough onto a sheet of waxed paper or aluminium foil.

It will ideally set in its shape at room temperature, but if you live in Madras, refrigerate!

Things to do with the cookies:

Eat with milk for breakfast.


Eat by yourself in pajamas while watching one of Woody Allen's movies.


Pack them and give to your loved ones.



Invite a friend over and gossip/b**ch/polambify for hours over these.


Or if you have a boring life, you can chase random brats who steal your cookies and run out when you aren't looking.


This is Zaad's happy/hungry face. People say he takes after me.


You can easily halve the recipe and still get at least a dozen large cookies. Which will keep, wrapped in foil, for around a week in the refrigerator in a normal household and three hours in mine. There's just one niggling thought.

Please make it with Nutella and tell me how if it matches up to all my daydreams/fantasies.

P.S.: This post is dedicated to some skinny-yet-strong women:

Rad (who asked for egg-less); for Spica (who asked for more non-NEWT-y recipes); for Anisha L (cupcake liners and making me mildly famous!); for A, who would have eaten it with no regard to "calories-and-crap"; for Z, who made me fudge for the first time and for funding my two-Reese-cups-per day habit (for a whole week); for Sarbee (who likes her chocolate-laden cookies, but has no oven) and for Nigbe (who pretends to hate Valentine's Day, but is a closet romantic and the happiest when true-love stories do work out).

5 comments:

  1. Hehe.. Sweet! This recipe looks so simple and yumm that I might just get my lazy ass from making fail veg dinner to making this ;D

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    1. Nihad, you must try this! And your mum was showing off about your more kozhambu to her gumble. :)

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  2. This recipe looks fabulous! Just one thing, not that I'm not a fan, but is there anything else I can substitute the peanut butter with? Like just incase I want to eliminate it, what else can i use to attain the consistency?

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    1. Hey, you!

      You can pretty much follow the recipe to a T, omitting the peanut butter alone; maybe cut to cocoa to 3 tbsp and increase to butter to 3/4 cup. Make sure the fudge has come to rolling boil, though (before you throw in the oats, put a few drops of the fudge into a glass of COLD water... if it forms a soft ball, the consistency is right!)

      Substitutes: Nutella, chocolate chips, marshmallows, Almond/Cashew butter. But you MUST try it with peanut butter. If peanut butter is too pricey, you can make your own with just a cup full of raw peanuts :http://mmmfood13.blogspot.com/2011/05/peanuts-two-yu-mmm-y-ways.html

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    2. Awesome! Thanks. Sumi looks adorable btw!

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