Everyone needs a classic, old-fashioned peanut butter cookie recipe. Make bakery-style, soft peanut butter cookies at home with this simple recipe.
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Bakery Style, Soft Peanut Butter Cookies
Time to share another of our “famous” bakery style cookie recipes! (Famous= popular in our family. 🙂 ) I love my cookies soft, slightly underbaked, and THICK. Oh, yeah, and they have to be straight from the oven. That is, barely cooled off enough to not burn my hand. If I had to choose one of our bakery style cookie recipes as my favorite, these soft peanut butter cookies would be at the top of the list. Why? Well, because of a few reasons:
1: They’re peanut butter cookies, and I looooovvvveeee peanut butter! (Obviously!)
2: These cookies are thick and soft. No hard, crispy edges here.
3: Lastly, they are moist. A lot of times peanut butter cookies are very dry and crumbly, especially the kind you buy from the store. You could have the classic peanut butter cookie look, but unfortunately, I’ve had to second guess myself before grabbing a cookie. Some types of peanut butter cookies are so dry, you can barely taste the peanut butter. Thankfully, these cookies are not that way. In fact, these cookies are bursting with peanut butter flavor and stay soft!
This dough is super easy to whip up. All you need is a few basic ingredients, a mixer, and 10 minutes. As always I like to chill the dough. I would recommend rolling them into balls and making the class criss-cross pattern first, before you chill the dough. This helps them cool faster, since they are smaller. Plus, it’s easier to work with room temperature dough.
Also, after they’re rolled into balls, it’s harder to keep eating the cookie dough. I’m telling you, once you taste it, you will not be able to stop until they get into the oven! It takes a lot of willpower for me to just stick these pretty little cookies in the fridge…
There’s one step to these peanut butter cookies that is unique just to Lizzy T. With all of our bakery cookies, we sprinkle the top with a little bit of sugar before they go through the oven. This gives a special effect that you won’t want to skip out on. A little extra sweetness never hurts.
Okay, and one more thing- if you don’t need these cookies right now but know that you’ll want them in the near future, they are very freezable!
How to Freeze Peanut Butter Cookies
-Roll out the balls, use a fork to make criss-cross lines on the cookie.
-Put the unbaked dough on top of each other, with wax paper in between layers.
-Wrap them up and put them in a plastic baggie, and write instructions on the bag of how to bake them so it’s easier to remember when that cookie craving hits. 😉
-Put the baggie in a bigger plastic container, and then stick in the freezer! I like to use Rubbermaid Take Along rectangle containers. They’re big and fit lots of cookies inside.
All you have to do when you are ready for freshly baked cookies is pull them out of the freezer, then let them defrost fully before opening the container or bag. Once the cookies are cold but completely defrosted, you’re ready to bake them! You can freeze cookie dough for up to 3 months.
Soft Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, cream the butter, peanut butter and sugars. Add vanilla and mix. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt. Add to mixture in mixing bowl and mix until well combined.
- Use a large cookie scoop (or whatever size scoop you'd like!) and roll the dough into balls.
- Place the dough balls on a non-stick baking mat. Use the tins of a fork to make a criss-cross pattern, pressing down into the cookie dough. Sprinkle extra white sugar on the tops of the cookies. Refrigerate the cookies for 30 minutes.
- Bake the cookies at 375 degrees for 9-10 minutes. If you like cookies to be soft, be sure not to overbake them. They shouldn't be browned at all.
- Store in an airtight container.
Nutrition
Jessica @ A Kitchen Addiction says
I can’t resist a good peanut butter cookie! These look perfect!
Kacie` says
Will this recipe work with bread flour?
Julie Clark says
You can use bread flour but they may not be as soft as using all-purpose flour. I’ve never tried bread flour.
Renee says
Hi Julie,Maddie and Kinslee. I have a couple questions, can these freezer cookies be made with Country Crock margarine sticks for baking and my other question is can your recipe for Peanut Butter m&m Monster cookies be frozen? Thanks in advance for any reply.
Julie Clark says
Yes the monster cookies can be frozen. They make great freezer cookies! As far as using Country Crock Margarine, I’ve not tried it. Usually margarine makes for a flat cookie. So yes, you can bake with it, but it may change the look and texture a bit.
Kristyn says
Made these last night, and they turned out great!
Julie Clark says
Wonderful! Thank you! They’re our favorites. I can’t resist them!
Kaylee says
Too much flour. I made these and followed recipe and they tasted like flour. There was no peanut butter flavor at all. Very disappointed.
Julie Clark says
I’m sorry you were disappointed! These are always a hit. Not sure what went wrong. 🙁
Jenna says
I was super excited to give these a try because the pictures make them look delicious and mouth watering! Was extremely disappointed by the taste. You could barely tell they were peanut butter cookies. The texture was beautiful but the flavor just wasn’t there.
Julie Clark says
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy them! They are truly some of our favorites.
Russell says
I also made these peanut butter cookies and they look great but taste terrible. There’s no peanut butter flavor. They taste like flour.
Julie Clark says
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy them. We make them all the time and love them. If you’re looking for super peanut butter flavor, try these: http://www.tastesoflizzyt.com/reeses-overloaded-peanut-butter-cookies-2/ You can leave the chocolate out if you’d like!
Jeannine says
No do not use bread flour it does not work they taste bad And I used all purpose flour and now I am on the third batch the boys took them fishing and ate them all. I give them 5 stars
Melissa says
Salted, or unsalted, butter?
Julie Clark says
I normally use salted.
Christina says
This is the greatest peanut butter cookie recipe in existence….I wanted to make something that matched my mom’s delicious cookies from my childhood. These are full of nostalgic bliss and have become a party staple with my friends and family!!! Thanks so much, they are just perfect.
Julie Clark says
Awww, thank you!!!
Janice Rose says
I think these are great bakery cookies that stay soft into the next days. Beautiful appearance. Would make a great commercial cookie. Now if you want that chewy and crunch texture, stronger on the taste of peanut butter, this might not be the cookie you are looking for today. But good recipe.