The Perfect Soft Peanut Butter Cookie

/19 Oct 2018

/51 Comments

/All Posts, Cookies, Drop Cookies, Other Cookies, Recipes

Melty, soft centers are the best in my soft peanut butter cookie recipe!

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These are The Perfect Soft Peanut Butter Cookie! No old fashioned criss-cross necessary, these peanut butter cookies melt in your mouth!

I feel like I have recreated a classic here, guys. I am so super excited to share this recipe for the BEST Peanut Butter Cookies in the game. They are little love nuggets and I want you to make them and fall in love just like I did!

Of course I am a peanut butter cookie fan…and while I have even made many peanut butter cookie recipes here on my site I have never LOVED a peanut butter cookie as a standalone item. Is that weird? I mean stick a Reese’s Cup on top and the cookie takes a backseat. Right?

What makes the perfect soft peanut butter cookie?

I think peanut butter cookies are sometimes too peanut buttery? Is that a thing? Or often times they are too crumbly which is never a cookie goal. OR you get that icky peanut butter “feeling” in your mouth. I don’t know, I can’t describe it, but I know you know…

MY OTHER RECIPES

You will find NONE of those issues here today with this Perfect SOFT Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe.

My recipe has the EXACT right amount of peanut butter, a slightly crispy edge and a soft middle. Oh, and did I mention I added peanut butter chips? Yeah THAT was a good idea. You totally don’t have to…you could even use chocolate chips or white chips, but the addition of peanut butter chips just adds a creamy sweetness to this peanut butter cookie recipe that makes it THE BEST!

How to make the BEST Peanut Butter Cookie

This recipe is spectacularly easy…just a few little tweaks to keep them from being too thick, hence no crisscross necessary.
I add a teaspoon of cornstarch to the dough, which gives the cookies a slightly melty texture, while keeping the cookie centers soft.
Also I recommend using a combination of baking soda and baking powder in this peanut butter cookie recipe, which gives these cookies the perfect height without being cakey. The cookies will puff up ever so slightly in the oven due to the baking powder and then settle a touch while they are cooling to create a soft crinkly texture.
I like also like to use a butter/peanut butter combo to tone the flavor down a bit. Some peanut butter cookie recipes use only peanut butter, and while that’s great for flavor, it tends to make the cookies a little crumbly.
Finally I use a combination of granulated sugar and brown sugar in my pb cookie recipe, which helps give the edges an itty-bitty crisp, while still having the depth of flavor that the brown sugar brings.

Why don’t these peanut butter cookies have the criss-cross pattern on top?

Another great tip when baking these cookies, as well as any cookie recipe, is to use a cookie scoop to portion out the dough. This ensures that all the cookies are the same size and shape!
And notice these peanut butter cookies don’t have the famous criss-cross pattern! Since there is no chilling of the dough it’s fairly sticky and will be really difficult to roll into a ball, so if you don’t have a scoop do your best using a heaping tablespoon.
And like I said before, I like to add peanut butter chips in this recipe. You can add them before they bake or as soon as they come out of the oven. It’s a step you certainly can skip, if you wan to, or find yourself fresh out, but including the chips adds a creamy sweetness to the cookie. And like I said earlier, you can add white chips, milk chips, or even semi-sweet chips!

When they are baked up they will look like this…

I know these will now be your go-to peanut butter cookie recipe.

Looking for more Peanut Butter Cookie Recipes?