Gemma's Best-Ever Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe | Bigger Bolder Baking (2024)

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure for details.

Hi Bold Bakers!

My Best-Ever recipes are all about taking the most classic sweets and making them Bigger, Bolder and the best they can be! Considering how many cookie recipes I’ve created, even I can’t believe this one didn’t come sooner. So, without any further ado, THIS is my BEST EVER PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES recipe!

Packed with that sweet and salty peanut flavor, a crunchy sugar-dusted outside, and buttery-soft inside, this cookie is sure to become one of your go-to favorites!

If you’re looking for more cookies, be sure to check out my Cookie Recipes page for 50+ cookie recipes — both classic and new — from Best-Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies to Chocolate Brownie Cookies!

What Kind Of Peanut Butter Is Best For Peanut Butter Cookies?

The star of the show is the peanut butter! This recipe includes a whole cup of peanut butter, which might have you wondering what kind of peanut butter to use. The truth is — you can use a natural, more runny, peanut butter or good old Skippy and Jif. Both work really well, but a more natural nut butter may provide a softer cookie as those peanut butters can tend to be runnier.

What is important here is that you use smooth butter to create the right melt in your mouth texture for a soft peanut butter cookie!

Taste And Consistency

By the end of making your batch of cookies, each one should have the full flavor of creamy peanut butter, a balance of chewiness to softness in the texture of the cookie, and all the sweet savor from the butter, sugar, and vanilla extract.

What You’ll Need To Make Peanut Butter Cookies

Thankfully, you only need a few tools of the trade to get started:

• 2 cookie sheets and parchment paper
• Medium and large bowl
• Stand mixer
• Whisk
• Fork
• Wire rack
• Measuring cups

How To Make Peanut Butter Cookies

This is honestly the best peanut butter cookie recipe. Here’s how to make homemade peanut butter cookies that will soon become a staple in your house (and don’t forget to get the full recipe with measurements, on the page down below).

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, then butter and line 2 cookie sheets (or baking sheets) with parchment paper.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Cream peanut butter, butter, and sugars together in a large bowl using a stand mixer.
4. After creaming to a light and fluffy state, add egg and vanilla extract and incorporate.
5. Add the medium bowl into the large bowl, whisking until a thick dough is formed.
6. Scoop dough into heaped tablespoon-sized balls. Roll each ball in granulated sugar then place it on cookie sheets.
7. Flatten cookies with a fork, and press down to create an X-shape and that criss-cross pattern.
8. Bake for 14-16 minutes until golden brown.
9. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely.

If Peanut Butter Cookies Are Too Crumbly

If you find your homemade peanut butter cookies to be more on the dry or crumbly side it can be for a few reasons. The temperature of the ingredients counts! Starting with room temperature eggs and butter, and then creaming the butter with the sugar really well will ensure the cookie dough is nice and smooth, making for a softer cookie!

Making the Cross Marks In The Cookie

One of my favorite things about these cookies is the way they look. We all know and love the cross-hatch pattern on the top of a classic peanut butter cookie. To get this look you use a plain dinner fork!

After rolling your cookies into balls and tossing them in sugar, use the fork to press the cookies down into a disc. Then, press the fork across the cooking in the other direction, making an X shape. This not only looks super enticing but creates a texture on the top of the cookie making for the crispy parts and soft parts that I love.

How Many Calories In A Peanut Butter Cookie?

Each peanut butter cookie contains roughly 70 to 80 calories. As with all desserts, enjoy but with moderation.

Chilling Peanut Butter Cookie Dough — Is It Needed?

Since this dough is super thick and rich it does not spread as much as a chocolate chip cookie. This means you do not have to chill the dough — but it never hurts! As a rule of thumb, I actually chill all my cookie doughs for at least a few hours to overnight. Chilling is also aging, so this helps the flavors develop, too.

Storing Peanut Butter Cookies

My simple peanut butter cookies will keep for 3-4 days covered and stored in an airtight container at room temperature. These cookies are as good warm as they are cool. They stay crunchy on the outside and nice and soft in the middle making them a great bake-ahead cookie or edible gift!

Tips and Tricks to Making Gemma’s Best Ever Peanut Butter Cookies:

• When making cookies, always start with room temperature butter
• Should you want a lot of texture to your cookie you can use crunchy peanut butter
• If you’re allergic to peanuts you can use another nut or seed butter
• If you don’t eat eggs they can be replaced with a flax egg
• Instead of using brown & white sugar, you can use coconut sugar
• After the cookies are baked dip 1/2 of them in chocolate for a chocolate peanut butter cookie
• Use these cookies for ice cream cookie sandwiches!
• Grind these cookies into a fine crumb and use like Graham Cracker crumbs in a pie or cheesecake crust
• You can keep the unbaked dough in the fridge for up to 4 days
• Freeze scooped dough for up to 8 weeks. Defrost and bake-off fresh.

Get All Of My Peanut Butter Cookies!

As it turns out, you don’t have to make just peanut butter cookies. You can make them in all kinds of ways. Try these variations and let me know which are your favorites!

• No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookies
• 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
• Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

And don’t forget to buy my Bigger Bolder Baking Cookbook!

Full (and printable) recipe below!

Ingredients

Instructions