Year Two Day Two - Preacher Cookies

Dear all,

Today I am broadcasting a new and fabulous way of producing cookies in a very short space of time: Preacher Cookies! While watching The Big Bang Theory, their existence was mentioned in passing during a witty quip from Sheldon and Darren probed further suggesting that they might make good blog fodder.

I did some research and found this recipe online http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/preachercookies.htm

. As usual, I skim-read the instructions and even turned the oven on.. I hadn't realized that Preacher Cookies didn't need cooking. Who'd have thought it! 

• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup margarine (1 stick) or 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
• Dash salt
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups rolled oats

 Instead, I melted the sugar, cocoa, milk and shortening in a pan ( shortening is a fairly frightening entity but damn, I know it makes things taste good).

Once everything had dissolved and melted down, I bought the mixture to the boil. *** beware of flying sugar; this stuff is like molten lava!

 In order to ensure the mixture was ready for the next stage, I dropped a spoonful of the chocolate into some cold water. The chocolate formed a soft mushy ball on impact so I knew I was good to go (for those with the correct hard ware: 234 degrees on a candy thermometer).

 I then added the peanut butter, salt and vanilla and stirred it together until the peanut butter melted. It still resembled a pot of liquid metal and bizarrely started to 'fizz' when I added the vanilla essence. I marched on undeterred and added the oats, then stirred it all together.

I quickly dropped a spoonful of the mixture one by one on to grease proof paper and left them to cool ( which took no time at all). They are easy to make but Good Lord, they are sweet and I am sure they are best avoided if on any sort of weight management diet ( i.e. 100000 calories per cookie)

It's always good to experiment and I was quite enamoured with the oven-free preparation. Maybe I will use low fat marg next time..