These Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies are super thick, rich in peanut butter flavor, and loaded with gooey chocolate chips! Press extra chocolate chips on top and sprinkle with sea salt for an impressive presentation! A great recipe for anyone who loves the combination of chocolate and peanut butter!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Hello bakers! And welcome to week 3 of chocolate month! Today we’re celebrating one of the most popular flavor combinations in the world: chocolate and peanut butter! And one of the most beloved baked goods: COOKIES!
These cookies are soft, thick and chewy! And of course, super peanut buttery!!! Thanks to an entire cup of creamy peanut butter that’s swirled into the batter! Plus, 2 whole cups of chocolate chips.
So let’s jump into the recipe so you can get baking!
My Top Tips for Making PERFECT Peanut Butter Cookies
- You’re going to need a stand mixer or electric mixer for this recipe! You’ll use it to beat your room temperature butter and peanut butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy.
- Use eggs AND a yolk! Don’t skip the yolk because it adds moisture and makes the cookies a little more chewy! And be sure you’re using large eggs, not medium or extra large.
- Brown sugar AND granulated sugar! This combination adds flavor and moisture to our cookies.
- Weigh your dry ingredients! Especially the flour, because using too much flour can lead to dry balls of dough that don’t bake properly. This is my favorite kitchen scale! It’s under 30 dollars, easy to clean, and most importantly, very accurate!
- Don’t use artificial vanilla flavoring! This won’t add anything but generic artificial flavor to your cookies. So if you don’t have real vanilla extract on hand, just skip it! Or add a teaspoon or two of bourbon.
- I do not recommend using natural style peanut butter, sugar free peanut butter, or chunky peanut butter!
- For an extra peanut butter kick, try subbing half of the chocolate chips for peanut butter chips!
- For evenly shaped cookies, use a large cookie scoop to divide your cookie dough. This ensures all of your cookies come out the same size and shape!
- Press down gently on the dough balls before baking. This helps them spread evenly in the oven! If you prefer super puffy cookies, you can skip this step. But be warned: they’ll the very thick!!! Not at all a bad thing, but I find most people prefer them a little thinner.
For extra pretty cookies, press a few chocolate chips on top right when the cookies come out of the oven! And if you love the combination of salty and sweet, you can sprinkle on some flaky sea salt, too!
Can I make them ahead of time?
Thankfully, this recipe doesn’t require chilled dough! Meaning you can just assemble, scoop, and bake!
That said, if you’d like to make the cookie dough ahead of time, you can. It’ll keep, covered and in the fridge, for up to 3 days! But let it come to room temperature for a bit before baking. I usually sit my bowl on the counter for 30 minutes or so before baking.
And you can also freeze the cookie dough balls for up to 2 months! Place them on a cookie sheet and freeze until solid, then transfer them to a freezer safe ziplock bag and pop them in the freezer until needed. But you’ll want to add a few minutes onto the bake time if baking from a frozen state!
More Peanut Butter Cookies Recipes:
- Soft Batch Chocolate Chunk Peanut Butter Cookies
- Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies
- Santa’s Favorite Peanut Butter M&M Cookies
- Peanut Butter Monster Cookies
- Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Brown Butter Salted Pretzel and Toffee Peanut Butter Cup Stuffed Cookies
Bakery-Style Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 and 2/3 cups flour (321 grams)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter (269 grams)
- 1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup (199 grams) granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup (142g) light brown sugar, packed
- 2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, plus extra for decorating
- Flaky sea salt, for sprinkling (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon (if using). Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl using a handheld electric mixer, beat the peanut butter and butter until smooth.
- Gradually add in both sugars, one at a time, and beat until well combined, about 2 minutes.
- On low speed, add in the eggs and egg yolk, one at a time, beating well after each addition, and scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla.
- Gradually add in the dry ingredients, beating on low speed until just combined. Turn the mixer off.
- Using a rubber spatula, fold in the chocolate chips.
- Using a large cookie scoop, scoop out 1/4 cup portions of the cookie dough and roll it into balls. Place the balls on the prepared baking sheets, leaving at least 2-inches between each cookie for spreading. Gently press down on each cookie ball, slightly flattening the ball. This will help them spread evenly in the oven.
- Bake, one tray at a time, for 14 to 16 minutes, or until golden brown and set. Repeat with all cookie dough.
- When the cookies come out of the oven, press a few extra chocolate chips on top while they're still warm, and sprinkle with sea salt, if desired. Serve warm or cooled!
Video
Notes
- If you're not using a digital scale to weigh your ingredients, you may want to reduce the flour to 2 and 1/2 cups. Fluff up your flour first, then gently spoon it into the measuring cup and level it off with a knife. But for best results, weigh your ingredients.
- Do not use natural peanut butter for this recipe. I recommend a regular creamy peanut butter like JIF or Skippy.
- I have not tested this recipe with crunchy peanut butter and do not know how it will work.
Erin says
This is a favorite recipe of mine! But what do you think about white chocolate chips and peanut butter chips?
Ashley Manila says
I’m so happy you love this recipe! And I think white chocolate chips and peanut butter chips would work great, but will definitely increase the overall sweetness of the recipe 🙂
Sparks Cooks says
I wanted to make a peanut butter cookie, just not the traditional kind. I wanted something over-the-top. These were insanely delicious. They were loved by everyone, including one family member who isn’t a cookie fan. These were the best cookies I ever made and were not overly complicated.
Ashley Manila says
This comment made my day! I’m so happy these were a huge hit for you!
Tasha says
Non-American here. Cups where I live are a different size to cups in the US. Roughly how many grams of the dough is in a 1/4 cup scoop for you? If I were to use, say, a 1.5 or 2 tablespoon measure (because a 1/4 cup sounds GINORMOUS to me), do you have an idea of roughly how many cookies that would make? I’d like to figure out making slightly smaller cookies *and* a smaller batch size too because 24 cookies of that size seems like a looooooooooooooot and my small household wouldn’t be able to handle that many (we don’t have space to freeze them if we made a full gigantic batch). They look amazing, though.
Allen says
These look incredible, but I really want to make a normal sized batch of around 8 cookies as I’m baking for myself and don’t have the space to make such big batches and freeze leftovers. If I were to cut all the other measurements by 1/3 could you advise on how I should adjust the eggs please?
Elena says
Hello,
I made this cookies with natural peanut butter and they are very tasty.
Thank you very much for the recipe.
Hearher says
This is a great recipe. I used my 2 1/2 tablespoon scoop, instead of the quarter cup stated in the recipe, and made 38 cookies. I baked nine at time on the cookie sheet for 14-16 minutes. I let them cool on the cookie sheet for about 10 or 12 minutes before transferring them to the cooling rack, and this creates a soft (instead of crunchy) cookie.