I made a batch of no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies and they didn’t get hard. I ended up with bits of sticky mess.
Does it sound familiar to you?
Although most no-bake cookie recipes are fairly easy, it’s important to follow the recipe, specifically for ingredient amounts and cooking time. When a recipe says ‘boil’ it means the mixture should have rolling bubbles for the recommended time. Because we are so used to bringing food to a boil and then simmering it, many no-bake cookies fail if you turn the heat to a simmer before it has boiled long enough.
Another reason for failure of no-bake recipes occurs when ingredients are omitted but other ingredients are not increased. It’s about volume. For example, if a recipe calls for 8 ounces of milk, but you only have 4, your mix will be too dry to set and can end up being a crumbly mess. The remaining 4 ounces of liquid must be made up with another liquid, such as water or juice.
It is perfectly acceptable to reduce or avoid ingredients that you don’t like, but unless you also reduce the same proportions with the other ingredients, you can run into problems. So if you want to reduce the amount of oatmeal by 1/2 cup, try making up for the volume with 1/2 cup of cereal and your cookies will come out just fine.
Not letting your cookies set for the recommended time can also cause crashes. Even though you’ve made a fabulous batch of cookies, if they don’t have enough time to set firmly they will fall apart. Some cookies can be ready to eat in as little as 30 minutes, while others require an hour or two before they are ready to eat. It’s hard to let cookies set when they look good enough to eat, however it is the difference between eating a perfect cookie and having a handful of gunk or crumbs.