Measurements

• As with any baking recipe, if you don’t measure the ingredients appropriately, you’re going to have a different result than what the recipe intended. If you use too much milk, butter or chocolate, your no-bake cookies might not set up or may remain gooey on the inside.

Ingredients

• Use the right type of ingredients when making no-bake cookies. A good no-bake cookie recipe will specify every ingredient type, right down to the milk percentage -- 1 percent, 2 percent, skim. If the recipe you’re using specifies an ingredient type, use that ingredient type. Otherwise, you might end up with sticky, unset cookies. The same goes for substituting. If you’re out of baking chocolate, don’t substitute with cocoa powder and shortening -- shortening can prevent your cookies from hardening up. Look for recipes that offer substitute options and ratios so that your cookies turn out even if you don’t have the right ingredients on hand.

Boiling

• A no-bake cookie is boiled instead of baked in the oven and this is the most important step if you want your cookies to set. The batter must come to a full, rolling boil -- a vigorous boil inside the pot. Follow the boiling times to the minute -- no less, no more. Often the reason no-bake cookies don’t set is because their boiling time was shortened. Set a timer while you’re boiling so you don’t over or under cook your batter and time the boil after the cookies reach a rolling boil -- not while you’re melting the ingredients.

Temperature

• If the inside of your house is too hot, your no-bake cookies aren’t going to harden. You can counteract this by placing your no-bakes inside the refrigerator to chill and harden. Before starting a no-bake recipe, make sure your house isn’t too hot and don’t let the cookies set up near a heat source.