For Santa: No Bake Snowball Cookies
I haven’t been fully working this Santa thing to my advantage.
We haven’t gone and seen him yet this year, and I’d be surprised if we do. I’d also be surprised if I make gingerbread men for our tree or mail out our Christmas cards. The Christmas card thing would be especially surprising since I never ordered any. So, friends and family, consider this your Christmas card/newsletter nearly every day of the year.
Merry Christmas!
But back to the jolly old guy. This weekend, one of my girls was pitching a fit about having to bathe and wash her hair. I know, unimaginable. Never mind the fact that I’ve been successfully avoiding shampoo myself since Friday.
Suddenly, it dawned on me—Santa! Turns out, all you have to do for the next two weeks to get almost immediate obedience from children is say, “You know who is watching, right?” Girlfriend was squeaky clean in the blink of an eye.
So out of gratitude, I’m making Santa cookies early. Call it a test run for the big night. Or call it that I got mad at Pea Daddy for leaving the Barbie Dream House in the front entryway all weekend and wanted to make it up to him.
He’s so easy.
And so are these cookies.
No Bake Snowball Cookies
Makes 24-30 cookies
- 1 c. organic sugar
- 2 T. vegan margarine (i.e. Earth Balance) or coconut oil
- 3/4 c. non-dairy or organic milk
- 1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 t. salt
- 2 t. vanilla extract
- 1/2 c. natural peanut butter
- 3 c. quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats*
- 1/4-1/2 c. organic powdered sugar
*most recipes traditionally call for quick-cooking oats, but I don’t mind the texture of the old-fashioned. Use whichever you prefer.
In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, margarine or oil, milk and cocoa powder.
Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat.
Once the mixture has come to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat and add salt, vanilla and peanut butter.
Place oats in a large mixing bowl and pour chocolate mixture over the top.
Stir until fully incorporated.
Place dough in the refrigerator for an hour. This should give you plenty of time to wash your hair and/or put the Barbie Dream House away.
When the dough has chilled, place the powdered sugar in a bowl, grab your dough, a cookie scoop or measuring spoon and a plate.
And if you are extra tired like me, a chair.
Using your scoop, portion out a bit of dough and roll it into a ball.
Drop the ball carefully in the powdered sugar and roll it around until the cookie is lightly dusted all over.
Repeat until you’ve used all the dough.
The cookies will be ready to eat or return to the refrigerator for a firmer cookie and/or storage.
I’d never made traditional No Bakes before, but plenty of you have asked me to make a healthier version.
Now I know why. Wowsa.
Rest assured, these have nearly half the sugar of the traditional version and just a fraction of the fat. Plus if you use certified oats, they can be gluten-free.
In other words, Merry Christmas!
Just save some for the big guy. Whoever that might be.
JUST pinned this on pinterest!! Looks amazing, and I have all the ingredients to try them tomorrow! Yay!
Awesome, thanks!!!
It was repinned 4 times within 10 minutes of me pinning it!! Ha! (And if I had wrote that sentence 6 months ago, I would have thought I was going mad and speaking in tongues
)).
That’s so cool!
Okay, I have to make these! I always scan the ingredients in recipes first thing and I love that they are gluten-free. Got my Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free oats and everything. Yum!
Yay! Enjoy!
Yummy
I will definitely be making these and Santa will be lucky if there is any left 
Ok…I need these now. Seriously……now.
I love snowball cookies! But I am so 2001, I’ve never heard of “no-bakes” before. I feel like I’ve discovered Jello for the first time, with the naivety of not knowing what it’s really made of.
Do you think I could sweeten these with honey or agave and skip the powdered sugar if we are trying for a sugar free holiday?
I think that would work fine..you may want to use less milk. I wouldn’t do maple syrup, though. I think it’d be too thin.
Vegan no bakes are my son’s favorite cookie! We will have to try this! Merry Christmas!!
That Santa cookie jar is too cute!
I cant wait to make these… so easy and healthy.
I think we got it at World Market a few years ago.
I am definitely going to try these for our big family Christmas dinner!
Let me know…I hope they are a hit!
This reminds me of an oaty version of traditional “Puppy Chow,” the chex cereal with PB, chocolate, vanilla and powdered sugar. I think me much prefers this variation with oats and balls, simply because that’s more fun to say.
Oh, I flippin’ love Puppy Chow. I can’t make it, it’s too good.
hehe haha HOHO!=)
I make something eerily similar…we call them On-top-of-Stove cookies! SOOOO good!
I am ON THESE! Santa Schmanta. These babies are MINE!
ahhh no bake cookies, is there anything better??
I am sure that these cookies did the trick with Pea Daddy. Merry Christmas to him! Men are easy like that, aren’t they?
I also made S’mores bread pudding, so I think I’m out of the Barbie doghouse.
Oh yummy! I have all the ingredients and the minute my little mausi goes to nap time i am whipping these up! They look amazing:) I seriously don’t kn
Oh dear that’s how tired I am:( how do you do it? Seriously I feel at Christmas time I take big breath in the morning and RUN around all day without stopping for air…and I only have one munchkin! You are amazing.
Ha ha…take care. I’m barely hanging on over here myself.
Never mind that it’s 10 ‘o’ clock at night…I may need to bake these right now. (My roommates won’t mind, as long as I leave them some to eat, right?)
That’s the beauty…you don’t have to BAKE them (they’re no bakes!!!).
yet another Mama Pea recipe to add to my list of To Dos. Wouldn’t have it any other way!
Raggedy Robins! That was what my middle school home ec teacher used to call these – i still make them using a recipe from the cookbook I made in 7th grade. The HH Pool Middle School version is not so vegan
I love the idea of rolling them in powdered sugar to make the more Christmasy! You can roll just abut anything in powdered sugar “snow” or add red/green sprinkles and pass it off as a Christmas Cookie (I bought all three of the aforementioned items yesterday).
Where the heck does Raggedy Robins come from? Poor Robin.
these are my kinda cookies! i would definitely eat them all before Santa got any… just sayin’.
“This should give you plenty of time to wash your hair and/or put the Barbie Dream House away.” –Oh I love that.
Or how about clean up the magic marker stains that all over the table because someone didn’t feel like staying on the paper.
These look great. I love a good no bake cookie, one that’s made with PB and cocoa powder and sugar…and rolled in sugar. I love it.
these look sooo good!
I just made cookies yesterday and used the exact same cocoa powder (so glad I am here in the States!).
I love that cocoa powder. I eat it off the spoon sometimes, it’s so good!
really?? I have never taken it that far. But when I remember your cinnamon challenge… cocoa might be better
Save some for the big guy?
Pfffffffft.
Or the little guy…
This recipe is extremely close to what we called “Easy Candy” when I was growing up. We made it all of the time, only we just dropped scoops onto wax paper to cool. I love the idea of chilling the dough, forming balls, and dipping in powdered sugar. I’ll be trying your version very soon!
Hope you do!
I wish I had someone to threaten with Santa. The dogs don’t seem to care.
The no bakes look great and I always appreciate your adaptions and mentions of GF goodies.
I always think of you when I type it…
Made these tonight – YUM! I will definitely be making these again! And again….
Dang, you’re fast. And so are these cookies!
Amazing. Who knew you could do this without an oven?! I think I’ll be skipping Santa and just making them for us.
Yeah, forget him.
My goodness, they look absolutely gargantuan in your Gigi(?)/Lulu’s(?) hand! These sound delicious. Making ‘em real soon, for sure
Lulu’s hand
Hooray–a gluten free cookie recipe! And it contains peanut butter! Aw, yeah. I am so making these for “Santa”.
Yum! Coconut would be awesome in these! As would peppermint extract, right?!
Hmm…I’d say yes to coconut, but I don’t know that peppermint and PB would work together
It is funny, because I just made some peanutbutter chocolate balls with peppermint and they were really good!
Wow, these look perfect! I want them now!
Ooo I think Mike (the bf) would love these! All he wants for Christmas is a plethora of peanut butter and chocolate goodies, and these look like they would work! Will have to try out sometime next week. Thanks for yet another great idea
No problem! Hope you guys enjoy!
These look amazing! I now have 3 of your recent recipes on my list to make before Christmas….yummy.
Have you heard of the magic santa app? My oldest used it to make a santa video for my youngest. He was so excited to watch it and he’s a different boy. All I have to do is remind him santa is watching….love it.
I’ll find it today…thanks!
I have the kitchen packed up in preparations for a big road trip tomorrow, but these look like just the thing to make and pack in the cooler!! Thank you for saving me from grabbing a snickers bar at a rest stop vending machine
These do have a kind of Snickers quality to them. You could totally add chopped peanuts too.
Yay! Finally a no-bake cookie from Mama Pea. Aka….something I can handle.
I love your healthy no bake Snowballs. These are perfect for my son’s 11th birthday party, on Christmas eve no less. He will enjoy helping me make them, as he is becoming pretty darn good cook! Thanks
Enjoy!
I wish I was Santa in your house! I want those cookies!
I have no idea what you are talking about…Santa in my house.
You had this busy student at “no bake.” These look festive and charming
Ooooh and she plays the Santa card! My parents used to give me that one all the time and it’s amazing what you’ll do as a kid when you’re told “he’s watching”. If I were to make these now I’m not sure there would be enough left for Santa!
Ahhh, the Barbie Dreamhouse. My cousins had the Barbie townhouse when we were kids (in the 70′s). Not sure if it is the same as the Dreamhouse. We had one Ken and several Barbies between us so we would reenact scenes from the soap operas. I always made my cousin’s Barbie be the hussy stealing Ken from me.
Speaking of Ken, the no bake balls look delicious!
I am making the eggnog nuts tonight – can’t wait!
I’m pretty sure this is the 70s version too. We got it at a garage sale
I make these cookies so often that it’s kind of gross—but they’re so easy! And so delicious! And I find that I can cut the sugar even more and not taste the difference whatsoever. But I’ve never dusted them with powdered sugar before. And that’s why you’re my favorite, MP ; )
I wanted to play with how much sugar I could cut (I can’t believe the originals have 2 cups!) and I thought the powdered sugar would balance any lack of sweetness…but you’re right, I probably could have cut the sugar even more.
I find that I can usually cut the sugar pretty drastically in my baked goods and they still taste great. But, in all honesty, cutting it in half is still a HUGE improvement!
yup! these have been added to my list of things to make for Christmas!!
Anything “no-bake” is A-OK in my book!
These look incredible!
Love that sweet baby hand grabbing the cookie…
I love that hand too
Hi Mama Pea!
Have a great one, Dana
So about 10 of your posts showed up in my reader today – BUT it appears they’re all showing up in their entirety now. Yay! Now back to these fabulous no bake cookies
That is strange!
Oh i love no bake cookies!!! though sometimes i think its more work to stand by the stove to stir instead of just mixing and throwing them in the oven like normal cookies lol but the chocolatey peanutty goodness is worth ti!
I’d say it’s about a wash, labor wise
Those look so amazing. SO amazing. They might actually be illegal, that’s how amazing they look.
These look amazing! i love no bake cookies and making them gluten free is even better.
These look delicious – just in time for cookie-gift planning. I think this would be a great one to include in christmas cookie gifts for my team!
I used to love no-bake cookies, but once I got into “healthy eating” they no longer appealed to me. Can’t wait to try these out!
Hope you do! I can’t believe I’d never heard of them before!
love these! the only problem with these is that you can’t sneak any cookies
the powdered sugar ALWAYS give you away!
Ohh these look so good Mama Pea! And I love the easy factor at this time of the year.
I will make some this weekend and roll in cocoa powder, yummm!!
Ana
Ps: your choc chip scones recipea is amazing! I have been meaning to tell you this since you posted the recipe. I have made them soon after your post and many times since then, and everyone loves it around here!
Ana
Oh good, I’m so glad! I love the cocoa powder idea too!
Oh my goodness, forget about Santa! Send those cookies to me!!
Honestly, I just made an identical peanut butter caramel and poured it over popcorn and all I can think about now is adding cocoa powder to the mix……
Holy smokes, that sounds awesome!
Mmmm! I love that I’ll be able to make these without running to the store first! Thanks Mama Pea.
You know what I love? Recipes that make me get out of bed at 6am so I can make them before I go run.
Pkus no bakes are my husband’s favorite. Thanks!
Hope he loves these!
You know what I don’t love? Typos from my phone.
We had these for dessert last night. My husband closed the cookie tin, looked at me sheepishly, and said “So… I ate 6 of those.”
Needless to say, he loved them. So did I. The reduced amount of sugar did good good things for these. Yum!
YUM!! I am definitely making these today!
Would love to hear what you think!
Those look devine! Cannot wait to try them.
You know what also works REALLY well … tell them you will “text” Santa and that you have Santa on speed dial on your phone … I wish this could be as effective in June as it is in December! HA
hello delicious cookies! I may need to make these to get myself out of the dog house… damn pregnancy hormones!
I’ve been using that excuse for 8 years…
These remind of a cookie that my mom used to make every Christmas growing up! They look delicious!
I’ve heard No Bakes are quite the thing! And here I’d never heard of them before.
I totally make these every year minus the powdered sugar… that’s an excellent addition! And I love the idea of working with them chilled… I drop them by cookie scoop-fuls onto wax paper while its still hot and let them form that way!
Snowballs are a little more festive than blobs…but equally delicious!
You bring a good point to the table.
this is great!! i was just thinking about searching for a vegan version of no bake cookies last night! i was wondering how it would work out, because you usually scoop them onto wax paper when they’re still hot and hope they set correctly. it was always all about the timing, cooking for exactly the right amount of time!
but putting them in the refrigerator and making them into balls is perfect!
if you use coconut oil do they have that coconut taste to them? i think ill have to make these both ways. thanks for the recipe!
They will have only a slight coconut flavor…you probably wouldn’t even notice!
Yes, I will be making these tonight. Yum!
I can’t believe you’re not using dry shampoo! it’s a life/time-saver!!
I would kiss the freshly washed feet of the inventor!!
now if I could only get on the preliminary wait-list for sleep-in-a-can!!!
What kind do you like? I tried the Tresseme brand, but I’m not in love.
I’ve heard that from several people!!!
I have actually been using Suave Professionals, the formula seems lighter and has a fresher scent!
I’ll look for it, thanks!
These look amazing! My dad would use Santa to bribe good behavior out of me every year. Worked every time! ;p
I really need these in my life! Time to go eat a huge pile of nachos…
Yum!
I used to make no bakes all the time when I was little. Can’t wait to try these!
Just made these – yum! My husband took one bite and decided they would be delicious with a little rum (o:
Ooh, I like the way he thinks. I’d leave out a touch of the milk and stir in the rum when you add the vanilla.
the english rose lipgloss and the rehydrating rose facial toner look like interesting ones to try!
My mother makes her no bakes with shredded coconut as another ingredient.. any idea how to fit that into this recipe? Would it be ok to just add it in? Rolling them in powdered sugar looks like a fun twist!
I think rolling them in the coconut would be awesome!
My last attempt at No Bake cookies was a massive FAIL. Santa would be very disappointed. That Santa cookie jar is super cute. Great that the checks are so fat to let you stuffed it full.
Hey Mama Pea,
Does the cookie base harden up at all or are they pretty soft and mushy? They look amazing!
Thanks!
We made these last night and we all feel in love! Thank you! (I am vegan my husband is not, kids eat a little bit of everything…my husband LOVED these so thank you-I love when he he loves a vegan recipe!)
I made the cookies last night and they are DELICIOUS! Thank you for the recipe.
Awesome! So glad!
Is there a print, link, please?
Thank you.
It’s right here! http://peasandthankyou.com/recipage/?recipe_id=6007503
Thank you!
I’d love their Eucalyptus Salve. I love the scent of eucalyptus and can only imagine. My cousin and I both got a Barbie Dream Boat for Christmas years ago. It was pretty awesome!
Those look delish! As in I may be using that recipe for Xmas dinner treats! This is very random, but I think you should make a movie. I’d love to watch it. I mean a feature length kinda deal. It would be awesome and comforting.
Ha ha…maybe I’ll write a screenplay in my free time
First, I hope you’re feeling better, and second, these cookies are really great. I’ve decided to make them my 2011 Christmas cookie gift for the neighbors!
Awesome! I’m honored!
mmm… I love no bake cookies. Never thought about rolling them into little balls though! Brilliant!
I made this cookies yesterday, they are so good! My father-in-law said they tasted very wholesome, my mother-in-law doesn’t like peanut butter in sweets, so they weren’t her fav and my husband loved them! I would say they are a hit with pretty much everyone!
Wonderful! Have a great day!
These look awesome, but no peanut butter in the house and I’m too lazy to make another trip to the store…do you think I could sub cashew butter?? I’m sure the taste would be a slightly different but cashews and chocolate taste good together…right?
I’m sure they’d still be great. I find it hilarious that you have cashew butter but not peanut butter. You are a true foodie
I made these for my daughter’s preschool Christmas party. By the time I got back to the snacks, there were only four left! These go quick and are delicious!
Awesome. I’m so glad, Kayla!
Looks like Santa and I will be happy campers this Christmas!
Hi Mama Pea! How long do you think I could store these for? I will be making them tonight, was wondering if the leftovers would be okay next week/Christmas time or if I should just make another batch then.
Hmm, I have some in my fridge right now from this batch and they still taste fine…but I would probably make a new batch for Christmas anyway.
This is a great reci”pea”! I made them with little fuss and (even better) very little mess. The only thing that puzzled me is once refrigerated, the powdered sugar seems to disappear. Did I not roll them in enough sugar?? Don’t worry, I rolled them in more and those little suckers didn’t stand a chance at my BF’s office! This will definitely be a go-to recipe for the holidays!
It does eventually “melt.” Mine in my fridge still have a dusting, but yes, you could always add more if you like.
no bake = true love
Just made these! Delicious and turned out perfectly as usual with your recipes.
But now I need HELP!!!
Mama Pea and anyone who can empathize: What vegan appetizer can I bring to a Christmas Party for a relatively meat-and-potatoes crowd? There’s no dinner, we’re just having lots of appetizers. I’m already thinking Ranch Oster Crackers and Eggnog Spiced Nuts but want something more filling as well. Ideas???
P.S. Love your picture Mama Pea–curly hair and infinity scarf are adorable
Thanks, doll! What about the pumpkin spice roasted chickpeas? And throwing them on a salad? You can use the cinnamon vinagrette, some almonds, dried cranberries and maybe sub orange segments for the strawberries. YUM!
http://peasandthankyou.com/recipage/?recipe_id=6000834
Mama Pea! I just made these cookies for my PR consultant who is a Vegan chef. They are sooooo good. I am definitely saving some for myself. I also just bought your book — and read it in one night. I’m not a vegetarian, but I’m really looking forward to trying your recipes.
Wow. That’s very cool, Toa! Thank you!
Just made these with my son–super yummy and virtually guilt free! Thank you!
My pleasure! Enjoy!!!
Just wanted to say – I’ve made these twice now since you’ve posted the recipe and they are definitely on my favourite list now! Absolutely delicious! Thanks
That’s so great to hear! Thanks, Andrea.
These are delicious! I made them last night and instead of rolling them in powdered sugar, I used ground flax seeds. (I figured if I made them “healthier” I wouldn’t feel so guilty about eating an absurd amount of them…) Yum yum yum!
That’s a great idea. Others have suggested cocoa powder and coconut as well.
I have these chilling in the fridge right now, a triple batch!