As a mother, I’m always looking for healthier but tastier snack options for my kids, and lending on peanut butter cookies was a blessing for our evening snacking time! By far, it is the easiest and most healthy cookie recipe I have tried! Trust me, it somehow makes your kids have milk without putting on a fight! Talk about a win-win situation!
But, the recipe isn’t only for kids; you would love it, too! It’s delicious, crispy outside, and very soft on the inside! We chose crunchy peanut butter for this recipe, and the taste enhanced tenfold. The crunchy peanut butter adds a unique texture to the cookies, and we absolutely LOVED IT!
On Sundays, throw in half a cup of choco chips to the same recipe and make a delicacy out of it! I personally love to garnish the cookies with chocolate chips and roasted peanuts before baking for added texture and taste!
You will only need 15 minutes to prep the dough and a total of 10 minutes to bake the cookies. (Please note: You will need time to preheat (5 minutes) the oven and chill the dough (one hour)). For me, the fact that this recipe only requires simple ingredients and no extensive cooking technique wins the cake!
Below’s a quick and easy recipe for peanut butter cookie dough!
Why You Will Absolutely Love This Recipe!?
- The taste is top-notch: It’s the perfect balance between sweet, subtle salt, nutty, and chocolatey flavors.
- Texture: When baked correctly, the cookies are a crumbly delight. Crispy on the outside, but tender on the inside. Using crunchy peanut butter further adds a nutty texture to your recipe. When you add chocolate chips to the batter, it melts inside your mouth!
- Versatile Ingredients: You will need crunchy peanut butter, all-purpose flour, vanilla extract, unsalted butter, white sugar, brown sugar, eggs, baking soda, baking powder, and kosher salt. Most of these ingredients would be easily available in your pantry. However, if you are out of something, you can source it at the nearest supermarket!
- Requires less cooking time: Other than preheating the oven and chilling the dough; you only need to invest 25 minutes on cooking— 10-15 minutes for prepping the dough and 10 minutes for baking it in the oven.
- Doesn’t require extensive cooking technique: The recipe is extremely simple and doesn’t require expert cooking skills.
Ingredients Required For Baking The Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookies
Peanut butter is your key ingredient! It’s better if you get the bigger jar because you’d be baking this quite often trust me!
You only need 5 main ingredients for this peanut butter cookie dough recipe.
- 1 cup of crunchy peanut butter: Choose a good brand to relish the true taste and texture of peanut butter. I personally loved the choco-base crunchy peanut butter, the chocolate flavor adds bitter-sweetness to your recipe.
- 1 cup/2 slices of unsalted butter: Butter adds a rich tenderness to your recipe. It also helps raise the dough and acts as an emulsifier. It helps you bind the ingredients together. Please note: If your peanut butte is not solid enough (dripy), one stick of butter is enough.
- ½ cup of sugar: Most recipes will advise you to add 1 cup of sugar, but ½ a cup of white sugar is more than enough. You can add more later after tasting the dough.
- ½ cup of brown sugar: Brown sugar is denser and allows less air to get trapped in the dough. It also adds moisture to the dough.
- 1 egg and 1 yolk: Egg yolk binds the ingredients together. On the other hand, egg white gives the much-needed puffiness and spread to the cookies.
- 1 and ½ cups of all-purpose flour: Flour provides structure and balance to the cookie dough. Not using flour may result in a sticky mess of dough. Processing without flour will make it difficult to constitute the proper shape for your cookies which might result in an uneven bake.
- 1 and ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 and 1/2 tablespoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon Kosher salt: Salt is very crucial when preparing a dough. Without it, your dough would taste bland despite all the other ingredients.
- 1/2 tablespoon Vanilla extract: Vanilla extract will make your kitchen smell like heaven. It also adds a rich aroma and depth to your cookies.
How To Make Peanut Butter Cookie Dough?
- Roast peanut crumbs in butter on low flame for a couple of minutes and set aside.
- Mix the dry ingredients: Take a bowl, sift, and whisk all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and a pinch of salt together.
- Mix the creamy ingredients: Beat the unsalted butter sticks, vanilla extract, brown sugar, white sugar, and peanut butter together until smooth and creamy. Beat butter for 1 minute or until creamy, 2 minutes for brown and white sugar, egg for 1 minute, and peanut butter for 3 minutes (or until creamy)
- Beat the dry and wet ingredients together: Beat together for a minute on low speed or until it has mixed well.
- Cover and chill the peanut cookies dough for an hour: Chilling the dough will give your cookies structure.
- Preheat the oven to 375? or 190? for 5 minutes.
- Use a cookie scooper to create 1-½ inch balls from the dough. Because your dough will have a sticky consistency, cookie scooper is a better option. But you can also use our hands if it’s unavailable. You will end up with 20 cookies once all the balls are prepared. Place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheet.
- (Optional) Roll the balls in crushed sugar: It will add a crusty layer at the top. I personally don’t enjoy rolling and coating my cookies in sugar because it makes the cookies too sweet. However, if your kids love it, go for it!
- Sprinkle roasted peanut crumbs and choco chips on top: Choco chips will entice your kids and roasted nuts will add a nutty crumb at every bite. You can also add them to the dough if your kids don’t have anything against nuts.
- Flatten all balls with a fork and create a criss-cross pattern to create the nostalgic old-fashioned peanut butter criss-cross cookies.
- Place the tray in the pre-heat oven and let your cookies bake for at least 8 minutes. Keep an eye on your cookies and let them bake until golden brown.
- Allow the cookies to cool down: Cookies are usually soft and mushy when hot, let them cool down on the parchment paper for a while before you devour them.
- Your cookies are ready!
Tips To Not Forget When Baking Groundnut Cookies
- Don’t overuse all-purpose flour: There are already enough binders in the recipes (peanut butter, butter, and egg). So cutting down on flour use will ensure your cookies aren’t too hard or dry.
- Use chocolate creamy peanut butter or crunchy peanut butter instead of plain peanut butter. Crunchy peanut butter will give you a better texture and enhanced nutty flavor. On the other hand, chocolate creamy peanut butter will add cocoa taste to your recipe. I like both these options. Using plain peanut butter might not give you the best taste.
- Don’t skip sprinkling roasted peanuts: Trust me, you will thank me later for this one.
- Don’t skip brown sugar: Brown sugar will soften and moisten the dough and also make it denser. Only using white granulated will dry your dough.
- Chill the dough: It will be easier to work with a chilled dough than a creamy one.
- Don’t skip the fork press: pressing your cookies with a fork will help them spread and bake evenly.
- Don’t overcook your cookies: 8-10 minutes is already enough. Baking it for more than 10 minutes might harden your cookies.
- Remember, the dough should be soft and creamy instead of dry.
FAQs regarding Peanut Butter Cookies
1. Can I store Peanut Butter Cookie dough?
Yes, it’s better if you store the cookie dough instead of the cookie balls. You can store it for up to 3 days. As for the prepared batch, store them in an air-tight container at room temperature.
2. Can I skip using flour?
Skipping flour will result in a creamy (too sticky) dough that’s hard to work with. Regardlessly, we have tried cooking peanut butter cookies with only three ingredients (egg, peanut butter, and sugar) and they were a quick delight. Of course, not as delicious, but it’s still fun!
3. What to do if your dough is too sticky?
Here are a few things to keep in mind in order to avoid too sticky dough:
- If your peanut butter is too runny; use only one butter stick instead of two!
- Chilling the dough for an hour is crucial to thicken it.
- If nothing works, add a little more flour until there’s a thicker consistency. Do it after chilling the dough. Adding more flour will add a crumbly texture, but it’s tasty nonetheless.
4. Can You Make Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Ahead Of Time?
Yes! You can prepare the dough before time and store it for at least three days!
5. Can We Make Natural Pb Cookies?
Yes, you can make peanut butter cookies with natural pb!
6. Can I make peanut butter cookies with brown sugar only?
Yes, you can! Use 1 and ½ cups of brown sugar instead of ½-½ cups of white and brown sugar when making a peanut butter cookie recipe with brown sugar.
7. How Long Are Peanut Butter Cookies Good For?
Baked peanut butter cookies are good for five days as long as you store them in an air-tight container. An air-tight container will ensure your pb cookies don’t get soggy.
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