Very Peanut Butter Cookies - Sally's Baking Addiction (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you add too much peanut butter to peanut butter cookies? ›

With so much peanut butter in this cookie dough, natural peanut butter will give you a dry, crumbly cookie. If you prefer peanut chunks, use Jif or Skippy crunchy. See recipe note.

Why You Need to Chill Your Cookie Dough. For starters, chilling prevents cookies from spreading out too quickly once they're in the oven. If you use a higher fat butter (like Kerrygold), chilling your dough is absolutely essential. Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool.

Ostensibly “regular” peanut butter, with its added emulsifiers, sweeteners, and hydrogenated oils, will contaminate your cookies' flavor with its weird artificiality. Your other source of fat should be butter, not shortening.

Using natural peanut butter requires a serious stir, Cook's Illustrated notes. Those oils and fats need to be completely reintegrated into the other solids before it can be used. Otherwise, parts of the peanut butter will be drier than others and it could affect the final texture of your cookies.

Certain cookies — Sugar Cookies, Snickerdoodles, Classic Peanut Butter Cookies — need to be flattened a bit before they bake, lest they end up emerging from the oven looking like ping-pong balls rather than typical flat, round cookies.

The reason is that peanut butter cookie dough is dense, and unpressed, each cookie will not cook evenly. Using a fork to press the dough is a convenience of tool; bakers can also use a cookie shovel (spatula).

Refrigerating the dough allows the flour to fully hydrate and helps to make the cookie dough firmer. Firm dough prevents the cookies from spreading too much, which is why chilling the dough is a crucial step for cut-out and rolled cookies.

Based on the search results, it is generally not recommended to bake cookies with raw cookie dough that has been left out overnight and then refrigerated, especially if the dough contains raw eggs [1]. Here's why: Safety Concerns: Raw eggs in cookie dough can potentially harbor harmful bacteria such as Salmonella.

For chewy cookies, allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 3 to 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. For crispier cookies, let cookies cool for one minute on the baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.

Cookies Made with Butter vs Shortening

Those made with only shortening bake higher and spread less during baking. The butter cookie provides better flavor and a crispier exterior with browning around edges and a chewy interior; the shortening cookie spreads less, holding its shape better while baking.

Why do you smash peanut butter cookies? ›

It's been the “mark” of this classic treat for more than eighty years, and for good reason: by flattening this dense cookie dough, it ensures that each cookie bakes evenly. Our kitchen-tested recipe is a classic.

That's because salt naturally enhances flavors. Peanuts: this is optional but highly recommend. It helps with the overall peanut flavor and gives a nice crunchy texture that compliments the soft cookie. Almond Extract: since we are already using flavors in the nut family, almond extract develops flavor even more.

PEANUT BUTTER – For best results, use classic creamy peanut butter like Jif or Skippy. I tested these with natural peanut butter as well and it didn't make a huge difference, but there can be a lot of variability in natural nut butters.

As you can see, the peanut butter replaces the flour and butter. Why is this? Peanut butter is basically ground peanut flour mixed with peanut oils.

If you don't have any parchment in the house and really don't feel like going out to buy any, remember that many of today's baking sheets already have a non-stick surface, and the fat content of most cookies make many recipes unlikely to stick anyway. Silicone mats are a great reusable alternative, as well!

Eating peanut butter in moderation provides you with wholesome nutrients. However, eating too much can make you gain weight because it is packed with calories and fats. The risk of weight gain increases even more if you consume commercial peanut butter brands, which often have added sugars, oils, and fats.

If your peanut butter cookies are hard, you likely cooked them for too long. They should not be baked for more than 8 or 9 minutes.

Want to know what makes chocolate chip cookies even better? More butter, of course! The extra butter in these cookies makes them super tender. Everyone will wonder about your “secret ingredient,” but only you'll know the reason for the popularity of your easy chocolate chip cookies.

Too much peanut butter leads to dry cookies

The protein in peanut butter may also be to blame — it typically adds structure to baked goods but can also retain water, leading to a dry consistency.