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Peanut Butter Cookies

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This classic peanut butter cookie recipe is thick and chewy, dusted with sugar, and downright delicious.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Our week of holiday cookie recipes on the blog this week continues today with another throwback classic…

…soft, chewy, buttery, always-a-hit peanut butter cookies.

Over the years, I’ve made a variety of healthier peanut butter cookies, which I also really love and make most often nowadays. But whenever I happen to spy one of the fork-crossed, sugar-dusted originals at a holiday party, I’m instantly reminded just how irresistible this classic peanut butter cookie recipe still is. And when we baked up a batch during my little holiday bake-a-thon this week, our friends here were quick to agree that nothing beats this classic recipe.

Gotta love a good peanut butter cookie. 

So if you feel like baking up a batch this season, here’s the recipe I’ve used for years!

Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe | 1-Minute Video

How To Make Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookie Ingredients:

To make this peanut butter cookie recipe, you will need:

  • All-purpose flour: Or you are welcome to substitute white whole wheat flour.
  • Baking powder and baking soda: This recipe calls for both.
  • Cornstarch: To help make them extra-chewy.
  • Salt: To bring out the flavor.
  • Butter: Two sticks, completely softened.
  • Sugars: Both granulated (white) and brown sugar, plus extra for rolling the dough balls if you’d like.
  • Peanut butter: Either smooth or crunchy.
  • Vanilla extract: Either store-bought or homemade.
  • Eggs: Two, please!

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough

How To Make Peanut Butter Cookies:

So, how to make peanut butter cookies? Simply…

  1. Prep your oven and cookie sheet. 350˚F and parchment paper.
  2. Combine dry ingredients. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cornstarch and salt.
  3. Mix the wet ingredients. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the softened butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes). Mix in peanut butter until it is incorporated and smooth. Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, scraping the bowl down after each addition.
  4. Add in the dry ingredients. Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add dry ingredients until they are just incorporated and the batter is smooth, being careful not to over-mix.
  5. Form your dough balls. Form the dough into 1.5-tablespoon round balls and place on the prepared baking sheet. (If you’d like, you can roll each of these balls in a bowl of granulated sugar before adding them to the baking sheet.)  Press a criss-cross pattern into each dough ball with a fork to flatten slightly, being sure that each dough ball is at least 2 inches apart.
  6. Bake. For about 10-12 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and the centers are slightly puffy. Remove from the oven, and then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to cool.
  7. Enjoy! Serve warm, or store in a sealed container for up to 4 days. Or freeze for up to 3 months.

How To Make Peanut Butter Cookies

Possible Variations:

Feel free to add in some:

  • Chocolate chips: Semisweet, dark, white, normal-sized, mini-sized…any kind. :)
  • Cinnamon chips: I’m a big fan of mixing cinnamon and peanut butter in this recipe.
  • Nuts: Chopped walnuts, pecans, almonds, or even extra chopped peanuts would be delicious in these cookies.

Peanut Butter Cookies with Milk

More Favorite Cookie Recipes:

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Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookies

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 4.8 from 128 reviews
  • Prep Time: 20 minutes
  • Cook Time: 10 minutes
  • Total Time: 30 minutes
  • Yield: 0 About 4 dozen cookies 1x

Description

These peanut butter cookies are soft, chewy, and absolutely delicious!


Ingredients

Scale
  • 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cornstarch
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 cup peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • (optional: 1/2 cup granulated sugar for rolling the dough balls)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350˚F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
  2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cornstarch and salt in a large bowl and set aside.
  3. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the softened butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Mix in peanut butter until it is incorporated and smooth. Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, scraping the bowl down after each addition. Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add dry ingredients until they are just incorporated and the batter is smooth, being careful not to over-mix.
  4. Form the dough into 1.5-tablespoon round balls and place on the prepared baking sheet.  (If you’d like, you can roll each of these balls in a bowl of granulated sugar before adding them to the baking sheet.)  Press a criss-cross pattern into each dough ball with a fork to flatten, being sure that each dough ball is at least 2 inches apart.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and the centers are slightly puffy.  Remove from the oven, and then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to cool.
  5. Serve warm, or store in a sealed container for up to 4 days.  Or freeze for up to 3 months.

Soft Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe

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219 comments on “Peanut Butter Cookies”

  1. Excellent!!






  2. Can I eliminate the cornstarch in this recipe? I don’t have cornstarch or any cornstarch substitute In my pantry.

    • Not sure what happened because I followed the recipe exactly. My cookies have good flavor but they are not soft and chewy at all. They came out very hard and crispy.

  3. I found it only made 3 dozen and I needed to cook 14 minutes.The cookies however were delicious.☺ I also like how the recipe was easy to follow.
    Thank you

  4. I am baking these Peanut Butter cookies this morning for my son who will be going in for surgery. He loves my cookies of all flavors, but this on is his favorite.






  5. I added a drop or two of maple syrup to the wet ingrediants like someone else in the comments. I also added a little Cinnamon to the dry ingredients. When they were cooled I spread a thin layer of melted peanut butter and a thicker layer of melted semi sweet/milk chocolate that had some coconut oil in it. Overall they were suuuuuper good, especially with the extra peanut butter and the chocolate! Will most likely make them again!!






  6. These cookies are the bomb.com. Made these last night. I put them in a ziplock bag then in the refrigerator until now. Chewy and delicious, perfect cookie. However, because of product shortage (at 2 different stores didn’t have) I could not find jiffy creamy peanut butter… but I had an unopened jar of jiffy extra chunky and a large unopened of skippy creamy, so I used half of each one… still a good cookie. But next time I will use only one brand peanut butter and hopefully it will be jiffy. Thank you for this recipe and God bless you!!!

  7. These peanut butter cookies turned out great! They are wonderful all by themselves…. But also looking forward to having these with milk, ice cream, and maybe spread with a layer of Nutella! Thanks for a great recipe! :)






  8. Hi, I’m a 13-year-old girl who made this recipe, it worked great. (a bit messy) The cookies were delicious and I found that smooth peanut butter works best, you should definitely try this!






    • Hey, I want to make these and I am 13 too. How many cookies did it make? I making them for a family gathering.

  9. It’s been many years since I’ve made homemade peanut butter cookies! Really easy recipe! Thank you!






    • I didn’t like them. Definitely not enough peanut butter flavor. I like a chewy cookie and these were crispy. More like a shortbread than a peanut butter cookie.






    • Chewy and crunchy and delicious!

  10. Love peanut butter cookies! How much chocolate chips do you had recommend adding for the variation? Also, 1.5 tablespoons I have the medium cookie scooper is that one scoop or 1.5 of that scoop size?

  11. Wow! I don’t normally review recipes, but I had to give this one some love. I didn’t change a thing ( just cut it in half) and it made 2 dozen cookies perfectly chewy on the inside and crispy around the edges.






  12. These cookies are absolutely perfect. Crunchy, chewy, sweet with a hint of salty. Everything you want in a cookie.

  13. Liked these cookies. The recipe was easy to follow. I would probably add another 1/4 to 1/2 cup of peanut butter next time. Might also try dark brown sugar. Mine took 11:30 to bake.






  14. Cookies are in the oven now ? looking forward to the great outcome.






  15. Awesome cookies, added p.butter powder to add more protein. Best ever






  16. NUT ALLERGY…not to worry! I made this with Sunflower Butter -smooth, due to nut allergy. They were excellent cookies. I rolled half the dough in parchment paper and froze it then cut the frozen dough in slices, the cookies came out perfectly. So pleased with this recipe.






  17. I made these delicious pieces of joy today! These are absolutely delicious! I added an extra Tbs full or two of peanut butter, a Tbs of Maple syrup and chopped peanuts! They have the perfect amount of salt to balance the sugar, the perfect softness to the perfect crispy edges! Yummmy! I had to force myself to stop eating them :) Thank you for sharing!






  18. I realized I had peanut butter in the fridge lol, looked up a recipe, found a hundred and chose this one. Absolutely delicious. Easy to bake, great flavor, chewy and soft, slightly crunchy on the edges.






  19. This recipe deserves a 101 star!!!!!!!!!!






  20. My friends and family loved them. Easy to make!!






  21. This is a great recipe. I absolutely love the taste and the texture. Crispy but soft inside. Rolling it in brown or white sugar is perfect. I would recommend reducing the salt if you are using a salted peanut butter.






  22. Get rid of the script writting if youre just going to double kver with type face font. Also, put messurements for ingredients at the top, dont say shit like “you need flour, or white wheat flour” with no messurement until the bottom of the flippin page where i was heading to leave this very comment….good recipe though #FixIt

  23. This recipe made a thin and crispy cookie. I prefer my pb cookies to be thick and soft with a rich pb flavor so it wasn’t my favorite recipe. I chilled the dough and they still turned out flat. When they spread out so much it’s a fine line between over baked, perfectly baked and under baked.






  24. Thanks for sharing!






  25. Made a half-batch! Fantastic. I froze a bunch of them. Instead of 12 I made 15, weighing them with a scale (44g each) I weigh all the dough and divide by however many I want, then they will be evenly sized.






  26. These cookies are delicious! They came out perfect. I added a couple tablespoons of extra peanut butter, but they would have been delicious regardless.






  27. 1 tsp of salt is too much. Cookies are too salty to eat. Is it a misprint? I will try to make them again with 1/4 tsp.

  28. Even the dough is 5 stars- and I halved the sugar! At the end added one tiny chunk of dark chocolate into each cookie bc I was out of chips! Divine!






  29. Super delicious, light, crisp peanut butter cookies! Followed the recipe exactly, except mine took about ~16 min to bake because they weren’t golden yet.






  30. Perfect!






  31. These are absolutely wonderful! Followed the recipe to a “T” with the exception of putting them in the refrigerator for an hour. This is one for my recipe box!






  32. Voted “Best Cookies Ever” by my husband and son.
    Incredibly quick and easy to make, and delivers just the right mix of chewy and crunchy.
    I used fleur de sel so that salt crystals are scattered through the baked cookie.
    Will definitely bake again. And again.






  33. Excellent recipe! Buttery and as described – moist in the center and crunchy on the edges. I used extra chunky peanut butter and per someone’s suggestion added 1/2 t. cinnamon to the recipe that I cut in half.
    Does anyone know the purpose of the 1 T. of cornstarch? Thanks!






  34. I made this recipe and the cookies are crumbly.

  35. SO CHEWWY AND DELICIOUS! Definitely adding this to my recipe box :)






  36. OMG ? I don’t write reviews, but this is too good not to! Fantastic recipe!! Definitely a keeper, thank you for sharing….. now it’s time for another cookie ?






  37. Best ever. Hubby loved them!






  38. Very authentic peanut butter taste, but definitely a sweet treat. I added 1 cup chocolate chips (so just a few per cookie) to get one of my kids to try them. Now, she’s a huge fan of the peanut butter cookie (something about the sandwich was in her head… “Mom, you’ve never made a ham cookie before.”). They are going fast, which is a good thing. Other than a handful of chips, I did not alter the ingredients and baked for 11 minutes, turning halfway through. They are crisp on edges, moist interior. Thanks for a well honed recipe, and a winner here!






  39. I’m not a big fan of peanut butter but a couple coworkers said that they are so I made these because I love baking. They came out perfect and I even tried one. It was awesome!






  40. Is “ natural” Teddy peanut-butter ok to use in these cookies?

  41. this is a great cookie .Tastes good and is moist

  42. I made some of these and the grands and great grands loved them, will be making alot of these puppys in the future thanx!

  43. Good cookie once there is enough flour, but I found I had to add 3 1/4 cups of flour instead of 2 2/3. also, they took 12-13 minutes to cook






  44. Excellent recipe. So good!!

  45. These cookies turned out soft and chewy . They were especially a hit with my 2 year old. Great recipe!






  46. The best peanut butter cookie ever. I didn’t have the
    Cornstarch and they were still delicious!






  47. Chewy and crunchy and delicious! Could use a little more peanut butter flavor. I chopped up peanuts and rolled the dough balls in them before the sugar.






  48. Would you recommend a “jiffy” type peanut butter? All I have is natural (ingredients: peanuts, salt). I’m thinking that might make them too crunchy, not chewy. Any advice on peanut butter type?

  49. These were to die for! Slightly crispy to where it snaps as you bite into it but still soft and chewy in the middle. These are definitely the kind of cookie that you eat one and then realize 10 minutes later that like 1/2 a dozen are missing, haha! I used dark brown sugar as I needed to use it up and the flavor was fantastic! The recipe says to use 1.5 tablespoons of dough for each ball before flattening into cookie. I decided to use only 1/2 Tblsp instead and they came count perfect! Printed this baby out to stick in my cook book. Thank you so much, Gimmesomeoven!