Recipe!

 

As requested by some of you yesterday, here is the recipe for my WWC-pictured “Volcano Cookies” (a dressed-up version of my childhood favorite, “mountain bars”). 

• 4 cups Sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup (2 cubes) butter
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tsp. Vanilla
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 8-9 cups oatmeal

Sift the sugar and cocoa powder into a large saucepan.  Add butter and milk, and heat on medium-low, stirring often, until mixture boils.  Boil for 1 minute.  Remove from heat, and immediately add the vanilla and peanut butter.  Stir well.  Slowly add oatmeal, stirring often.  As soon as mixture is finished, use a cookie scoop to plop their warm gooeyness onto wax paper.  The cookies harden as they cool, so you want to work fairly quickly.  My scoop allows me to make about 5 dozen of these in a batch. 

To turn “mountain bars” into “volcano cookies”…. mix up a very small amount of buttercream frosting (basic butter & powdered sugar, and maybe a few drops of milk) and tint with food coloring (2 drops each, red & yellow).  The stiffer the icing,  the more it looks like a lava blast.  Less stiff icing will make it look like the lava is flowing down the volcano.  I tried it both ways, so you can decide for yourself which you prefer.

Notes:
I like to use old fashioned rolled oats, because they are what we normally purchase… and because this way, you can claim a nice dose of fiber with every cookie you eat!   Some folks claim you can make these without the peanut butter, and you can…but if you do, you are missing a piece of the magic flavor.  Still, I know there are folks with peanut allergies out there… so do what you must.  (EB gave me great challenges with dairy and soy allergies for his first 4 years, so I do understand!)

These aren’t fat free or sugar-free, but they are EGG-FREE & WHEAT-FREE, and they don’t require heating up your kitchen oven.