Learn how to make peanut butter cookies, an easy recipe for smooth or crunchy peanut butter lovers.
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What Are Peanut Butter Cookies?
Peanut butter cookies are crumbly, chewy cookies full of peanut butter flavor that typically feature a criss-cross pattern of fork marks on top. You can make peanut butter cookies with creamy peanut butter or with crunchy peanut butter for more texture. You can also swap the peanut butter for another nut butter, like almond butter.
Origins of the Peanut Butter Cookie
Peanut butter became a cookie ingredient in the early 1900s when commercial peanut butter was introduced in the United States. The first record of peanut butter as the star ingredient in a cookie comes from Ruth Wakefield’s Toll House Tried and True Recipes, published in 1937.
Classic Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe
makes
48 cookiesprep time
25 mintotal time
35 mincook time
10 minIngredients
- 1
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- 2
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set it aside.
- 3
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together at low speed. (Alternatively, beat in a mixing bowl using a hand mixer or wooden spoon.)
- 4
Increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy.
- 5
Add the peanut butter and continue to beat until fully incorporated.
- 6
Add the egg and vanilla and beat until fully incorporated.
- 7
Remove the bowl from the stand mixer.
- 8
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- 9
Using a rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the peanut butter mixture.
- 10
Form the cookie dough into tablespoon-size dough balls, and space them two inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet.
- 11
Fill a small bowl with white sugar.
- 12
Press the tines of a fork onto the top of a cookie dough ball to flatten.
- 13
Dip the fork in sugar and repeat to form a crosshatch pattern.
- 14
Repeat with remaining dough balls.
- 15
Bake cookies until they are slightly puffed and turn light brown at the edges, about 10–12 minutes.
- 16
Let the cookies cool on a wire rack.
- 17
Store in an airtight container at room temperature.
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