After hundreds of Peanut Butter Cookies recipes tested by our expert team, we chose the best Peanut Butter Cookies recipe of 2021! Learn how to make in 6 easy steps! These soft peanut butter cookies are easy to make, full of peanut butter flavor, and don’t require any dough chilling! The best part is that these peanut butter cookies need ingredients you possibly have on hand already. These peanut butter cookies are super easy to make, with no fancy ingredients.
Peanut Butter Cookies Ingredients
- 1 1/3 Cup (188g) All-purpose Flour
- 3/4 Tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
- 1/4 Tsp Salt
- 1/2 Cup (113g) Unsalted Butter, Softened
- 1/2 Cup (105g) Granulated Sugar
- 1/2 Cup (110g) Packed Light Brown Sugar
- 3/4 Cup (185g) Creamy Peanut Butter
- 1 Large Egg
- 1 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 18 by 13-inch baking sheets with silicone baking liners or parchment paper. In a medium mixing bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
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In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream together butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until combined.
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Mix in peanut butter then blend in egg and vanilla.
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With mixer set on low speed slowly add in flour mixture and mix just until combined.
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Scoop dough out and shape into balls (30 grams each or nearly 2 Tbsp) then place on baking sheets spacing them 2-inches apart.
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Using a long pronged fork flatten cookies slightly then turn fork going opposite direction and flatten just slightly again (it should create that criss cross pattern).
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How Long to Cook Peanut Butter Cookies?
Remove from the oven, and then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to cool. Let cool on baking sheet 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store cookies and an airtight container.
Peanut Butter Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. Cookie dough will freeze well for up to 3 months, bake from frozen for an additional 1-2 minutes. Baked Peanut Butter cookies will also freeze well for up to 3 months, thaw at room temperature before serving.
Peanut Butter Cookies Nutrition Facts
The Best Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe 2021
This is the best Peanut Butter Cookies recipe of all time! These peanut butter cookies always be one of my favorites. Who doesn’t have happy childhood memories of making or eating peanut butter cookies, with that cross hatch patter on top, chewy bite and nutty sweet taste! So of course it only makes sense that I share my idea of the best peanut butter cookie recipe. The flavor of a peanut butter cookie is just hard to beat.
This is the best Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe you’ll ever make. They’re perfectly sweet and buttery rich, and they’re sure to satisfy that peanut butter craving. These Peanut Butter Cookies are the best cookies to put in your recipe box! Peanut Butter Cookies are so insanely addictive, the entire tray disappears before you can get one in to your mouth.
Most peanut butter cookies I’ve tried are either too hard, too floury, too dry, or lack the perfect amount of sweet vs salty. Peanut butter cookies are probably the kind of cookie I make the most. After all, they’re the only kind Mel will eat. I just love making them because they’re easy and don’t need any chill time. These peanut butter cookies are crispy on the outside, soft and slightly chewy on the inside!
Over the years, I’ve made a variety of healthier peanut butter cookies, which I also really love and make most often nowadays. This makes peanut butter cookies are an obvious hit. If you adore soft, bakery style peanut butter cookies, you are going to love these cookies.
These Peanut Butter Cookies have the most amazing melt-in-your-mouth texture, with crisp edges and a creamy, rich peanut butter middle. Sink your teeth into that perfectly soft and chewy texture and you’ll see why these are the only peanut butter cookies you’ll ever need!
This recipe is my favorite peanut butter cookies recipe! These are my idea of the perfect peanut butter cookies! Soft and chewy packed with peanut butter flavor. Plus they're quick and easy to make! A family favorite. These soft peanut butter cookies are easy to make, full of peanut butter flavor!
Best Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe
Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe Tips
To get super soft peanut butter cookies, I suggest only baking them for about 10-12 minutes. The tops of the cookies should look set, that’s when you want to remove them from the oven. As they cool on the baking sheet, the cookies will firm up, but still stay super soft.
If you prefer your cookies a little more crunchy, just bake them for a few more minutes. I suggest using a creamy peanut butter like Jif or Skippy, just avoid using a natural peanut butter where the oil separates in the jar. Chilling the dough for a few hours will help the peanut butter cookies maintain their shape, and not overly spread when cooked.
To help keep the fork from sticking when you make a cross-hatch pattern on the cookies, dip the tines in a little granulated sugar between cookies. Use a lower oven temp for chewier cookies. If you want chewy cookies, bake a little longer at a lower temperature.
You can use either smooth or crunchy peanut butter for this recipe. Smooth peanut butter will give you a smoother consistency. Crunchy will give you some bits of peanuts throughout the cookie. The fork crisscross is the classic way to make the distinctive look of peanut butter cookies, but you can use the bottom of a decorative juice glass like an old-fashioned cookie press.
Peanut Butter Cookies Origin
The Aztecs invented peanut butter in the 14th century, but peanut butter cookies didn’t become an American favorite until the early 1900s. In 1916, George Washington Carver began promoting the peanut and its many uses. As part of the campaign, he published three peanut butter cookie recipes in a research bulletin entitled, “How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption.”
In 1932, the Schenectady Gazette published the first peanut butter cookie recipe that called for crisscrossed fork marks on the top. The hash mark may be one of the most prevalent symbols in modern life, but it’s been the “mark” of peanut butter cookies for more than eighty years.
Whether or not peanut butter cookies’ marking was ahead of it time, these cookies are a timeless classic for any baker. The fork-tined hash mark gives homemade peanut butter cookies their distinctive look. The first instructions for making the mark on the top of peanut butter cookies was in a recipe from a 1936 Pillsbury cookbook.
There was no reason given for the marking, but some bakers and food experts suggest that it serves a very practical purpose by helping the cookies bake more evenly. That’s important because the addition of peanut butter makes the dough denser and more difficult to bake thoroughly.
By putting the fork-tine marks in cookie dough balls, they’re being flattened for more even baking. The result is a cookie that’s soft and chewy, with contrasting crispy edges where the marks have been formed.
