When I was a kid, my grandma used to make these no-bake peanut butter cookies called “Gold Nuggets.” My sister Mary and I would love to help her make these. If I’m remembering right, we would usually make them in summer months because they don’t require an oven and therefore won’t heat up the house (even more).
The cookies are fairly easy to make. They’re kid friendly, but children may need adult supervision because the recipe requires the use of a stove to melt sugar. They’re one of the easiest sugary snacks to make, right up there with shortbread and muddy buddies. (Remember muddy buddies? I should do a few versions of those too.)
I’m not sure where my grandma got the recipe, but at some point several years ago I copied it down. The version I have seems slightly different that any others I’ve seen online. When I searched “gold nuggets karo syrup corn flakes” on Google, Cook.com came up with about 40 recipes that seemed similar, but I din’t see any that were exactly the same. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough because I just wanted to get to making these yummy no-bake cookies.
My boyfriend had never tried gold nuggets before and he loved these. A few days after I made the cookies, he asked if we still had enough ingredients to make more. As of writing this, I still haven’t. I was just editing these photos a few minutes and seeing the photos made us both crave them again.
They’re not healthy by any means. I don’t want to know what the fat content is. Just thinking about it makes me want to alter the recipe and make a version with less sugar and a lower fat content. I would want it to have the same consistency and taste though, so I’m not sure how I could pull that off. For now, these will do just fine.
Grandma’s Gold Nuggets
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of Karo Light corn syrup
1 cup peanut butter
3 1/2 cups of corn flakes
Place sugar and corn syrup in a medium-sized saucepan under a very low flame. Do not boil. Stir until sugar has dissolved. Add peanut butter. Pour mixture into a big bowl and add 3 1/2 cups of corn flakes.
Stir, let cool, and form into gold nuggets. The cookies should form into balls about 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter.
Modern Notebook 
These look beyond delicious!
Thank you! And they are!