Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies

Bakery owner brings gluten-free treats to Dickerson Run

Made-to-order gluten-free baked delights are now available at Lisa's Gluten Free Bakery in Dickerson Run.

Lisa Brower, owner, was diagnosed with celiac sprue disease in 1997. It was a life-changing diagnosis for her because she had been baking since she was 12 years old and very much enjoyed breads, pastries and baked goods.

"I tried product after product that wasn't fit to eat and finally just gave up all the foods I used to love," she said. "The aroma of baked goods was like torture so I even stopped baking for my family. After a few years I tried baking with a gluten-free cookbook, but the food still didn't taste like the food I remembered eating."

Then Brower just got out her old recipe box one day, picked a recipe she was hungry for and rewrote it, using a variety of gluten-free flours. After a few years of blending and tasting, her baked goods began to taste like the wonderful food she remembered. The grit was gone and the flavor was delicious, she said.

Brower knew what it was like to have to give up the baked foods and so, having earned a degree in business marketing and management and confident in her gluten-free recipes she set created the new business in order to share the gluten-free recipes with others.

Gluten-free items cannot contain wheat, barley or rye. The main ingredient Brower uses is xanthan gum, although she also uses others such as gelatin and guar gum. In addition, she created her own flour blend that is in almost everything she makes.

Gluten-free breads, fresh baked by order at Lisa's Gluten Free Bakery are sandwich, Italian, baguette, onion, potato and monkey bread. Buns include hamburger, hot dog, Kaiser, onion, hoagie (plain or herb), dinner roll, buttermilk biscuits, English muffins, croutons and stuffing bread. Pizza dough comes frozen in both balls and flats. Breadstick flavors are cinnamon sugar, plain, garlic and herb. Cookies include peanut butter, peanut butter kiss, chocolate chip, chocolate chunk, chocolate peanut butter chips, oatmeal (no bakes), oatmeal raisin, thumbprints, snicker doodles, snowballs (Russian tea), sugared, sugar cut-outs, sugar spiral, white chocolate, oatmeal cranberry walnut, chocolate-covered cherry cookie, peanut butter cup, filled, nut tassies and bear claws (cinnamon nut roll).

Also available are mini fruit pastries, popovers, brownies and chocolate, orange and pumpkin gobs and apricot and nut rolls. Mini fruit pies include cherry, apple and peach. Cakes and cupcakes and mini cupcakes are available in chocolate, vanilla and red velvet. Choices of specialty cakes and breads are zucchini bread, pumpkin bread and orange-cranberry cake.

No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

I think I’m going to have to make these today.. There’s just no getting around it. I’m craving chocolate.  These cookies are definately in my top 5 ALL-Time Favorite cookie list, and they rank REALLY high because not only are they FABULOUS, but they’re SO darn easy to make as well!

I’ll tell you a “small” story: 

I love these cookies (ok we knew that part…but I thought you needed a reminder) For a time, I lived in Florida.. Don’t know if you know this, but the Humidity can be quite OPRESSIVE in Florida.. So much so, that these little gems, my favorite cookie..Would NOT ever…Not ONCE ..set up correctly ..the WHOLE time I lived in the state of Florida. OH! and I digress, but they wouldn’t set up when I lived in Mississippi either.

OK. Here’s the deal, if you live in the GULF, I’m terribly sorry, I’m going to say it, but these cookies just DON’T WORK RIGHT down there!  You’re going to be stirring your oats into your chocolate, happily fantasing how you’re going to be gobbling deliciousness in the very near future…you’ll be humming with anticipation when you spread ‘em out on the wax paper…and Then you’ll wait… and you’ll WAIT… and you’ll W A I T for them to set so you can EAT them!  But they just won’t!

At least they never would for me while I lived in MS and FL. ….Then I moved to Virginia. THANK Heavens and Praise the Lord. I was THRILLED…THRILLED, I tell you. These photos are from my first Virginia Beach, No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal cookie Experience. I was soo Happy! And now I hope you’re not living in the Gulf and depressed, but here’s the thing.. If you DO live in a place of horrible humidity, wait for a NICE day..when the air outside doesn’t feel like its trying to drown you.. then TRY.. you’ve GOT to try..I was trying for YEARS..years I tell you! Don’t give up! We must have the comfort of the No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie.. Trust me.

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