Toastaroons

Sometimes, there are clearly winning recipes. This is one of those. From Wartime Recipes from the Maritimes, these are hands-down the easiest cookies I’ve ever made. And they taste great!

I used the leftover half-can of condensed milk from Chocolate Marshmallow Ice Cream to make my first (half) batch. In future, I’d skip the strange “ice cream” and just make these!

Ingredients

6 cups corn flakes
1 can (14-15 oz) condensed milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a baking sheet [or use a silicone mat, or silicone cupcake liners]. 

Mix cornflakes and condensed milk. Drop onto baking sheet, and shape edges with spoon. [Alternately, put into silicone cupcake liners - minimal shaping needed]. 

Bake for 12-15 minutes. Remove from greased baking sheet immediately using spatula or knife, heating for a few second if they stick. [If using silicone, can let cool in place and peel off later]. 

A recipe with two ingredients is about as simple as you can get. And the rest is pretty much stir, drop, and bake.

We didn’t have typical corn flakes, but we had another corn-based cereal (Nature’s Path Mesa Sunrise, if you are wondering). It’s a bit more robust, so I did some intentional crushing of the flakes while mixing. It made for pretty hearty cookies.

For the first batch, I decided to do the original recipe’s greased baking sheet.

It was a little challenging to get the cookies off in one piece while they were still hot and gooey, but I could see that they’d cement themselves to the sheet with very little cooling. The cookies with a bit more condensed milk (depending on whether they were scooped from the top or bottom of the bowl) also spread a lot. I decided the solution to all of these problems would be to bake them in silicone cupcake liners.

Hence, the second batch.

Despite the second batch getting a little too toasty on the edges (still working out the right temperature of the oven), this method definitely removed the issues of spread, need for immediate removal, and breaking while removing when still hot. I let them cool in the liners, then peeled them off.

The verdict

These are awesome fast and easy cookies! These would be a great recipe to try with a young kid – minimal measuring, minimal steps, and yummy cookies at the end. The caramelized condensed milk tastes like dulce de leche, and makes them seem more sophisticated than they are. I liked the more rustic version of corn flakes that we used, but I’m guessing that a lot of different flaked cereals would work well in these. And the cupcake liner version solved most of the initial challenges. I will definitely make these again!

What cereal do you think would work really well in these?