Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies are thick peanut butter cookies stuffed with peanut butter chips, creamy peanut butter and jelly! Just like your favorite childhood sandwich in cookie form!
Can you even deal with how absolutely out of control these Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies are? If you haven’t really looked at that top picture above, take another second and just give it the attention it deserves. I am telling you that transforming my most favorite lunchbox treat into a cookie was a labor of love. I am pretty picky when it comes to peanut butter cookies. I don’t like them when they are crumbly, or too peanut buttery if that makes sense. I feel like I perfected peanut butter cookies with my Soft Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe. So when I first began developing this PB&J Cookie I used that cookie recipe as a starting point. Unfortunately it didn’t work because while they are perfect on their own, they aren’t thick or sturdy enough to hold all the delicious filling that I stuffed into these! But after a little tweaking, I nailed it. I am telling you that these cookies are my new favorite food group.
These Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies are thick, buttery peanut butter cookies, with a crackly top, stuffed with creamy peanut butter, strawberry preserves and peanut butter chips!
If I haven’t swayed you enough with the description of how good these cookies are, let me tell you how easy they are to make! The peanut butter cookie base is a combo of peanut butter and butter. You CAN make peanut butter cookies with just peanut butter and no butter, but peanut butter doesn’t have as high a fat content as butter, so I find that I prefer the texture of a peanut butter cookie that is made with the combo of peanut butter AND butter.
Sidenote: I have a recipe for Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies that works without butter due to the lack of flour, and they are great, but they won’t work for this recipe.
- Freeze Small Dollops of Peanut Butter. Before you start making the cookie dough, line a plate with wax paper or parchment paper. Drop little spoonfuls of peanut butter onto the prepared plate. This doesn’t have to be exact or pretty, so don’t worry about that. The amount you will need is about 3/4 teaspoon of peanut butter. Since you might not have a 3/4 teaspoon measuring spoon, you can eyeball it with a heaping 1/2 teaspoon or a scant full teaspoon. Make sense? Don’t get too hung up on this. Place the plate in the freezer while you make the dough. Also, you might be wondering why I don’t freeze the jelly/preserves. Well, I tried and it really doesn’t ever get solid, so it’s not worth the trouble!
- Make the Cookie Dough. This is super easy and straightforward. AND you don’t have to chill the dough!
- Stuff the Cookies. Use a large cookie scoop, and I’m talking LARGE. You will need 3 1/2- 4 tablespoon scoop! These will be big cookies, and if you are using my proportions of peanut butter and jelly filling, you will need this amount of cookie dough. Make a well in the center of the dough and spoon in 3/4 teaspoon of jelly and then place in one of your frozen peanut butter nuggets. Form the dough carefully around the filling doing your best to seal it in!
- Bake! Place them on a baking sheet with enough space for them to spread, and bake them until the edges get slightly golden and the tops start to crack slightly. Then press some more peanut chips on top to make them pretty!
- Let them cool! You will need to allow these cookies to cool for at least 5 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring them to a wire rack. They will be soft due to the filling and need to set up. If you try and move them too soon they will break.
What Kind of Jelly Can You Use?
You can use any flavor you prefer. Obviously grape or strawberry are the go-to. I have also found that I prefer using strawberry preserves in this recipe most often because preserves have bits of strawberry which I love, but certainly use what you prefer!
Can You Use Crunchy Peanut Butter?
You can, for sure. I don’t love crunchy peanut butter, I’m more of a creamy girl, but you can. OR use creamy peanut butter in the cookie dough, and use crunchy for the filling. Up to you! Since I added peanut butter chips to this recipe, you really don’t NEED the crunchy peanut butter for texture.
Do You Need to Chill These Cookies?
Nope! But you certainly can. You can easily assemble these cookie before baking them and chill the dough balls, or you can chill the dough if you’re doing things ahead. But if you do chill the dough before you assemble them, make sure that you allow the dough to come up to room temperature before you stuff them, otherwise the dough will be difficult to work with.
I really think you will love these Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies so much. And if you make them, don’t forget to share them on Instagram! I love seeing your creations!
Love Peanut Butter Cookies? Try These Recipes:
- Homemade Nutter Butters
- Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Cookies
- Thick and Soft Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 32 minutes
- Yield: 15 large cookies 1x
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Dessert
Description
Your favorite childhood sandwich now in form!
Ingredients
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter, plus 1/4 cup, divided
- 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup peanut butter chips, plus 1/4 more for optional garnish
- 1/4 cup strawberry preserves or jelly
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Reserve 1 cup of peanut butter for the cookie dough. Set aside.
- Line a plate with wax or parchment paper. With the remaining 1/4 cup peanut butter, scoop out 3/4 teaspoon portions and place them onto the prepared plate. You will need 15 small “dollops” of peanut butter. They don’t need to be exact. Place the plate in the freezer while you prepare the cookie dough.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment mix together 1 cup of peanut butter and the butter until smooth. Add in both types of sugars and mix for 2 minutes on medium speed.
- Add the egg, vanilla, baking soda, and salt and mix for 30 seconds, until combined, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Turn the mixer to low and add in the flour, mixing until just incorporated. Stir in the peanut butter chips.
- Using a large cookie scoop (3 1/2 tablespoons) portion out the dough. Remove the plate with the peanut butter dollops. Make a large well in the cookie dough. Scoop out 3/4 teaspoon of the strawberry preserves and place this into the well of the cookie dough. Top this with one of the frozen peanut butter dollops. Form the dough into a ball carefully around the peanut butter and jelly, doing your best to seal it in. Repeat the process with remaining dough, peanut butter and jelly. If working in batches, place the peanut butter scoops back into the freezer to remain firm.
- Place the dough onto the prepared baking sheet 2- inches apart. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the edges are lightly golden and the tops start to crack.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and press additional peanut butter chips onto the tops as a garnish, if desired.
- Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
You can use any flavor of jelly or preserves that you prefer.
Store airtight for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 322
- Sugar: 17.1 g
- Sodium: 213.3 mg
- Fat: 20 g
- Carbohydrates: 30.7 g
- Protein: 7.4 g
- Cholesterol: 29.9 mg
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I just made these. My butter was a little past room temperature (it was 98 degrees here). The batter was very wet. Has that ever happened to you?
Hi! I’m making this right now but something is wrong… the dough was crumbly and not smooth. I tried adding in a little more butter but that didn’t work. I went ahead with it anyway but it looks weird and after 12 minutes in the oven, they’re still scoop-shaped. What could I have done wrong?
I wish I could help you! Could be you added too much flour accidentally?
Yeah i just made it and it turned out the same. Maybe reducing 1/4 cup of the flour will work.
I think they are supposed to be thick. I baked them for 22 minutes and they were very thick but still tasted ok. My dough was a little crumbly but not too bad. Maybe your butter was too cold and didnt get creamy enough?
I read this comment before I started. I did reduce the amount of flour and it still crumbled. My guess is because it wasn’t a sifted amount.
Shelly, is it supposed to be 1.5 cups of sifted flour?
I ended up adding more peanut butter and both sugars and it came out SO GOOD! I’ll definitely make these again with the flour situation in mind.
I didn’t sift the flour for this recipe as written, but glad you were able to make them work!!
why do you always have to add so much emotions and branding to a single recipe
I enjoy when someone is passionate about something they put their time and heart into. Creating recipes especially baking is very time consuming.
What a weird thing to be a bitch about.
At first I didn’t understand how to assemble these cookies , but after I read these comments , it started making more sense…I like the questions and answers right after the recipe , mainly about their experience following the recipe…
Yes, I love hearing everyone’s experience!!
If you love PB & Jelly sandwiches then this is the cookies for you!! Listen to Shelly when she says to let them cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. I ruined the first 3 cookies ( well they fell apart so I had to set them aside & snack on them ) I used parchment paper so I simply slid them from the cookie sheet on to the counter to cool so I could get the next bath in the oven ASAP lol. As a shortcut for next time, I’m going to freeze dollops of pb in a ziplock bag,
Great tips!!
These are GREAT cookies! The scoop that I used was smaller than the suggested size, I got 30 cookies out of a single batch. Being that I used less dough per cookie, I had trouble sealing the peanut butter and jelly in, so I switched to make these like thumbprint cookies, and just used a piping bag to pipe the peanut butter and jelly into the little “well” in the center. They came out so good, everyone loves them. Thanks for the recipe!
Love that you adapted it to make more. I get the question a lot on social media if you can make smaller cookies or add more filling, and I tried both and found that decreasing the dough, or increasing the filling made it tough to seal it inside. This is a great workaround!
Hi Shelly, should the peanut butter be more or less on top of the jelly or are they ideally side to side? In the photo, the peanut butter looks a bit to the side and I’m wondering if the filling has distinct sides or if it’s all mixed together. Hope that makes sense.
It really doesn’t matter! The picture is more side by side to show that they are both in there, but as I did them I think I usually had the peanut butter on top of the jelly 🙂
Just made these , turned out so yummy! I would suggest leaving the 1/2 cup of peanut butter chips out of the cookie dough. The chips made wrapping the dough around the jelly and frozen peanut butter a little difficult…
Glad you liked them! Sorry you had trouble with the chips!
What about mixing the peanut butter and jelly together and freeze those little dollops?
Best recipe ever! The cookies o ur perfect every time! My fav combo.