Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut Butter

Thick peanut butter cookies that never get hard or fall apart.

By Wes Jones
Golden peanut butter cookies on a plate with one split down the middle to show the thick centers.
A thick peanut butter cookie might be the best cookie to bite into.
Prep: 18 min
Cook: 12 min
Total: 30 min
Yield: 7 servings

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. Mix 195g creamy peanut butter and 50g salted butter until just combined.
  3. Add 75g brown sugar and 75g granulated sugar. Mix until just combined.
  4. Add 1 egg and 2 tsp pure vanilla extract. Mix until just combined.
  5. Add 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, and 113g all-purpose flour. Mix until just combined.
  6. Scoop dough into 75g balls and place on a cookie sheet.
  7. Bake for 12 minutes exactly.
  8. Rest on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

I've never been impressed by homemade peanut butter cookies. They always seem to turn out rock hard and crumbly. At first, I thought adding more flour would make them more dense, but it ended up making them more cakey. What actually worked was getting the peanut butter to butter ratio right so they don't get hard. Then I figured out the right mix of granulated and brown sugar. Brown sugar is what gives these their chew.

After testing these a few different ways, these turned out exactly how I want a peanut butter cookie to be. Dense and structured, with resistance in every bite.

Overmixing peanut butter cookie dough adds air into the dough, which will make them fluffy or hollow instead of dense. You want to mix on low speed until the dough is just combined. The dough should look and feel like wet sand. If it looks smooth or whipped, it's overmixed. If you're worried, finish mixing in the last bits of flour by hand with a wooden spoon or spatula.

Raw peanut butter cookie dough resting in mixing bowl.
The dough should look and feel like wet sand.

Can you use natural peanut butter for peanut butter cookies?

Not really. It's best to stick with a classic peanut butter like Jif, even though I wish I could use natural peanut butter for these. Natural peanut butter separates on its own, and the extra oil keeps the dough from holding together, so the cookies end up crumbling in your hands.

An overhead view of an open jar of creamy peanut butter with chopped peanut pieces, resting on a bed of raw shelled peanuts
I prefer the raw edges from the cookie scoop. The edges get a little crispy and the centers stay a bit doughy.

Scoop and shape the dough into balls, then flash-freeze them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet for an hour or two before transferring them to a Ziploc bag. This keeps the dough balls from sticking together in the freezer. But if you're short on time, you can skip the flash-freeze and put the dough balls straight into a Ziploc bag. I've done it both ways and they'll bake the same either way. You'll just have to break them apart if you skip the flash-freeze.

No need to thaw these first, you can bake them straight from the freezer. Preheat your oven to the same temperature you'd use fresh, 350°F for these, and place the frozen dough balls on a cookie sheet. You can add one to two minutes to the bake time listed in the recipe if you want, since the dough is starting out colder.

PS. If your peanut butter cookies look done in the oven, they're already overdone. Pull them out while they still look a little wet or doughy in the center, they'll finish setting up as they cool on the sheet.

PPS. Keep uneaten cookies in the fridge. There's something about eating them cold that makes these even better.

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