If you’re thinking about baking for the holidays, these giant cookies will make beautiful gifts. While they’re not fall-flavored, they will make anyone feel like a kid on christmas morning again. For now, try a batch and see what you think.
If you want to make classic peanut butter cookies – no fancy tastes or flavors – than you’ve found your recipe.
My Notes:
- You’ll need to chill these for 30 minutes before baking so don’t make them in a time crunch.
- An ice cream scoop is a great way to get consistent sized cookies. They’ll look professional and take the same time to bake so you don’t risk burning or undercooking some.
- Keep a cup of water next to you while you’re scooping dough. Rest your ice cream scoop in the water during batches to prevent the pb from caking or in between scoops to keep the batter from sticking. Do the same with your fork.
- Save yourself some cleanup time by covering your counter with tinfoil before starting to bake. When you’re done, fold it up and throw it away. No stuck-on flour and pb mess!
Classic Peanut Butter Cookies
Adapated from Martha Stewart
Makes 24
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2-cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2-teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2-teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
- 2 large eggs (cracked in a separate bowl)
- 1 1/2-cups smooth, creamy peanut butter (for best results, don’t use all-natural pb)
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Whisk flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.
- Cut butter into pats and microwave for about 15 seconds to soften. Combine butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixture with paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy – about 2-3 minutes. Mix in eggs, and then peanut butter.
- Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour mixture until just combined. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes.
- Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop dough into baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 2 inches apart. Press cookies with fork tines (slightly pressing and dragging at the same time) to flatten and make a cross-hatch pattern.
- Bake until golden brown, 14-18 minutes (depends on your oven). Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack until completely cool. You can store this in an airtight container for 3 days at room temperature (if they last that long).
Mixing in the peanut butter:
Rest your ice cream scoop in a cup of water to keep it from getting sticky:
Creating the cross-hatch:
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Caroline is a freelance writer, nutrition communication consultant, and counselor with a holistic approach to healthy living. 
is that a glass of milk next to the cookies?
yes…it’s actually a wine glass of milk hehe. My water glasses all have these vintage-looking fruit crate labels on them, and I didn’t think they’d look good full of milk. The only other option was my stemless wine glass! 🙂
What kind of camera did you use to get that depth of field in the first shot? Good job with the photography.
I tried the recipe, they were amazing. Thank you.
I’m so glad you liked them! I just provide the recipe, so congratulations on baking an amazing batch 🙂
are they really giant?
they dont look giant….
but i still want cookies… do u like the cookies? are they good?
They are large cookies, indeed. I used a big ice cream scoop to make them, so they are all uniformly “giant.” If you want to make them enormous, go for it with a really big scoop! If you like peanut butter, I bet you’ll love these cookies 🙂
These turned out excellent for me. They grow into a very nice large size and taste excellent!
I’m so glad they turned out well! 🙂
I find it curious there is a note to avoid natural peanut butter, seems like one should avoid the butters with added oils and/or sugars….
Hi Abigail – from my research, most recipes with peanut butter assume you’ll use “regular” peanut butter instead of “natural,” and this recipe specifically calls for it to make sure you don’t swap. The main reason that bakers cite is that natural peanut butter is thinner than regular peanut butter and the oil separates from the nuts more easily, so the end product will have a thinner consistency and spread more. Also, regular peanut butter typically has a certain amount of salt and sugar in it, which is built into the recipe. There are some natural PBs that are ground to prevent separation, and those might work well as a substitute! Others say that they substitute all-natural crunchy PB (some drain the oil first) and have fantastic results.
If you try this recipe with natural PB, please report back – I’d love to hear – maybe they’ll be equally delicious and just come out a little different!
All of that said, some recipes are designed specifically for all-natural peanut butter, but when they are, they’ll almost always tell you.
I found these flourless all-natural peanut butter cookies from Joy the Baker you might want to check out! http://joythebaker.com/2009/04/flourless-peanut-butter-cookies/
Here’s another PB cookie recipe with all-natural creamy peanut butter from Orangette: http://orangette.blogspot.com/2011/10/out-on-this-limb.html
Phew! I hope that helps explain it 🙂
I just made a batch with all natural peanut butter, very good indeed! I must add, I also left out the white sugar (using a ‘solid’ 1 cup of packed brown sugar, not doubling to compensate for the missing white). The cookies were great, big and soft as the posted pictures indicated….so far no missing the sugar from the alternate peanut butter or the recipe reduction, just sweet enough. I guess I should really make a batch using the other peanut butter to do a true taste test, but these are just yummy enough as is I don’t know that I even want to mess with them!
Hi Abigail! I’m SO glad that you tried it with natural PB and just the brown sugar and loved them! Thank you for coming back and letting me know! I’m definitely going to try your version next time. And I agree to put the true taste test on the back burner – there’s no need to mess with PB perfection 🙂