There are few snacks quite so satisfying as a pile of soft, chewy peanut butter cookies with a glass of milk (or Ovaltine, in my case). Peanut butter cookies can be made so many different ways, and I’ll be showacasing all of those different methods over the coming months. Sometimes I like the cookies a bit crispier or crumblier. It really depends on my day. But this time, I wanted that melt-in-your-mouth softness that comes with making a thick, gorgeous cookie.
This recipe was featured just a few days ago as part of my Reese’s peanut butter egg cookies, and it works great if you want to stuff anything into the middle. But luckily, this baby is versatile. It’s a great cookie on its own, too!
When I was a cookie baking newbie, I’d roll the dough into balls and bake them. I was always so disappointed when I wound up with flat discs that didn’t remotely resemble the cookies in the picture of the recipe. Since then, I’ve learned a few tricks. The first is to always, always refrigerate the dough. If you don’t, the butter is too warm and the cookies spread out from the additional heat of the oven. You can chill the dough for as little as one hour, but I like to make the dough at night and then bake the next day. So always work the chill time into your baking plans. I know very few cookie doughs that don’t benefit from this method.
The other trick for the right cookie thickness is to stack the dough up tall rather than rolling it into a ball. As the dough bakes. the dough tower will gradually come down quite a bit, but you’ll still have some height to the cookie. I noticed a while back that place and bake cookies (the kind you buy in the store from Pillsbury or similar) are taller, and that’s what inspired me to try that shape!
See? It looks weird before you bake it, but that’s a before picture. Here’s an after.
This dough will also freeze really well. When you’re ready, just take the dough out, thaw it, and make a whole giant plateful of soft and delicious cookies!
Enjoy! And remember: this is the first of many peanut butter cookie recipes I’ll be sharing, because I don’t like to discriminate. Wouldn’t want to make all the other kinds of cookies jealous, right?
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used Jif Natural)
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 and 1/2 cups flour
Instructions:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter, sugars and peanut butter until creamy. Add the eggs, mixing thoroughly after each addition. Add the baking powder, baking soda, and vanilla. Finally, stir in the flour until everything is combined into a soft dough.
Cover the mixing bowl in plastic wrap and put the dough in the refrigerator to chill for at least one hour. You can keep it chilling for up to two days.
When you’re ready to make the cookies, preheat the oven to 350. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or use a Silpat baking sheet.
Using the method described above, form the dough into tall stacks, with a little more dough toward the bottom to form a solid base. The amount of dough you use depends on how big you want the cookie to be. I made these smaller, but it’s up to you!
Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through for even baking. Be careful: they go from done to overdone very quickly!
Cool the cookies for a few minutes and then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling. Grab a glass of milk. Eat. Enjoy!
