Slow Cooker Cocoa Peanut Butter Oat Cookies #CreativeCookieExchange

Chewy, crunchy and more-ish, these no bake slow cooker cookies are made with cocoa, peanut butter and whole rolled oats. They will have you reaching for just one more, until they are gone.

Despite my participation in the last Creative Cookie Exchange no-bake challenge in 2014 when I made Kashata Squares from Uganda, I am a neophyte at no bake cookie making.

This time I got my head in the game and hunted high and low with two recipe goals in mind. 1. It should be easy. Some weeks I’m close to in over my head and no bake could not mean complicated. 2. It should be tasty. I was hoping for something with peanut butter. I’m not much of a sweet eater but I do love the sweet and salty combination that peanut butter brings to a cookie.

This recipe on Moms With Crockpots fits both bills. Of course, my slow cooker is not an official Crockpot®, which is a registered trademark, so while changing up the method somewhat, I also changed the name.

These guys couldn’t be easier. Set your slow cooker on high and make a dent in your to-do list.

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups or 350g sugar
4 tablespoons baking cocoa
1/2 cup or 120ml milk, warmed slightly
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup or 113g unsalted butter – melted and cooled
3 cups or 300g old fashioned rolled oats (Mine are called Scottish jumbo!)
1/2 cup or 140g crunchy peanut butter

Method
In the base of your slow cooker, before you turn it on, mix together the sugar, cocoa, milk, butter and vanilla. I say to warm the milk first (just 20 -30 seconds in the microwave will do) because, in my experience, cold milk makes melted butter seize up again. We don't want that.

Pour oats on top of the chocolatey syrupy mixture. Spoon peanut butter in the middle on top of the oats. Don't mix them in!

Place the lid on your slow cooker and cook on high for 1 hour 15 minutes or until the cocoa mixture reaches a good boil around the edges. Resist opening it to look before your timer buzzes. Lifting the lid releases a lot of heat and it takes a while for your slow cooker to get back up to temperature. The peanut butter isn’t going to sink in (at least mine didn’t) but you do want it to soften in the heat.

You can see that it's bubbling!

Stir well. I mean, really well. You want the peanut butter mixed thoroughly throughout.

Use a cookie scoop to place your cookies on a clean heat resistant surface covered in baking parchment.

I don’t know if my 2-tablespoon scoop is smaller than the original recipe but I got 31 full scoops and one half scoop, way more that the two dozen promised.

Allow cookies to set for a few hours and then store in a sealed container, layers divided by parchment. (Cut up the pieces your cookies cooled on and reuse.) If it’s hot where you live, you might want to chill your cookies. Mine set perfectly but the bottoms were still a little sticky.

Many thanks to Karen of Karen’s Kitchen Stories and Renee of Magnolia Days for doing our behind-the-scenes organizing this month. It’s much appreciated!

Just in time for the heat of summer, another round of no bake cookies! Forget turning the oven on, we’ve got you covered.

• Coconut Apricot Slice from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Energy Bars from Baking in Pyjamas
• No Bake Almond Joy Bars from 2 Cookin Mamas
• No Bake Apricot Coconut Oatmeal Cookies from A Shaggy Dough Story
• No Bake Cookie Butter S'mores Bites from Live...Bake...Love
• No-Bake Fruit Balls from Magnolia Days
• No Bake Nutella Cookies from flours and frostings
• Slow Cooker Cocoa Peanut Butter Oat Cookies from Food Lust People Love
• Sweet and Salty Popcorn Cookies from Karen's Kitchen Stories

Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts at The Spiced Life). We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

.