Special Quick Cookies

Four ingredients. No oven. These no-bake peanut butter cookies are the kind of recipe you make when you want something sweet in 30 minutes and don’t feel like turning on the oven.

Sugar and white corn syrup get boiled together until the sugar dissolves, then the peanut butter goes in off the heat and melts into a thick, glossy coating. Stir in six cups of Rice Chex cereal, drop by the tablespoon onto wax paper, and let them cool. That’s it.

The corn syrup is doing the structural work here. It keeps the cookies from crumbling apart once they set, giving them a chewy, slightly sticky texture instead of a dry, brittle one.

Chef Tips

• Remove the pot from heat before adding the peanut butter. If it stays on the burner, the peanut butter can seize up and turn grainy
• Work quickly once the cereal is stirred in. The mixture stiffens as it cools, making it harder to drop neat spoonfuls
• Use creamy peanut butter for the smoothest coating. Chunky works too but the pieces can crush the cereal
• Let the cookies cool completely on the wax paper before stacking them, or they’ll fuse together

Variations

• Use chocolate peanut butter or add ¼ cup cocoa powder to the sugar-syrup boil for a chocolate version
• Swap Rice Chex for Corn Chex or Special K for a slightly different crunch
• Drizzle melted chocolate over the cooled cookies for an extra layer of sweetness