Easy Homemade Peanut Butter Cookies
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If you like your peanut butter cookies to have the perfect balance of salty and sweet that will just melt in your mouth, you must make a batch of these homemade peanut butter cookies immediately!
This is a recipe that I’ve wanted to bring you for a while. I’ve been making this homemade peanut butter cookie recipe for close to 10 years now. Although I’ve tried other peanut butter cookie recipes, I always come back to this as my standard – my husband’s all-time favorite. I like to make a big double batch of them if we’re going on a weekend trip to do double duty as filling snacks and treats for whoever it is we’re visiting.
Fortunately, this is a quick and easy peanut butter cookie recipe (just how I like it). All you need is a bunch of shelf-stable ingredients I bet are already waiting in your kitchen, like flour, sugar, eggs, peanut butter, and baking soda. After a little mixing and a little baking, you will have a delicious batch of homemade peanut butter cookies that are going to make your kitchen smell amazing.
You should also check out my 3-ingredient classic peanut butter cookie recipe here. It’s a good one, folks!
I hope you get to give them a try and if you have any little people in your life, invite them to bake these with you because kids make everything taste better.
Recipe Ingredients
- Shortening
- All-purpose flour
- White sugar
- Eggs
- Brown sugar (light or dark brown sugar)
- Smooth peanut butter
- Baking soda
How to Make Homemade Peanut Butter Cookies
So what we’re gonna do is dump everything, except the flour, into a large bowl.
Mix that up really well with an electric mixer, unless you have massively muscled arms. I’ll be using a mixer…
Add in flour and mix again.
Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
Your cookie dough will be a little crumbly looking like this. Use a cookie scoop or just your hands and make balls that are about an inch and a half in size.
Place on the prepared baking sheet about two inches apart.
Now, y’all know I don’t care for kitchen gadgets all that much and normally I’d say “Why use a dough scoop when your hands work perfectly well?” But after making three and four hundred peanut butter balls at a time, I’m a believer in the dough scoop. I actually own two of them because Katy likes to help and my kids really love peanut butter balls.
Next, take a bowl and put a little extra granulated sugar in it. Dip your fork in the sugar and mash down slightly on each peanut butter cookie dough ball.
Then dip in sugar again and repeat, continuing to do so until your batch of homemade peanut butter cookies is ready for the oven.
You don’t want to completely smoosh them, just mash them down one way and then the other to get a nice criss-cross design.
Bak at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown around edges.
Remove them from the cookie sheet and place them on cooling racks or just a plate (or clean countertop) to cool. Eat at least one warm though! Cooling the cookies allows them to harden, as they’ll be soft straight out of the oven.
I highly recommend enjoying one of these homemade peanut butter cookies with a glass of milk. Enjoy!
Storage
- Store your peanut butter cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.
- You can also freeze the cookie dough for up to 2 months.
Recipe Notes
- If the cup of smooth peanut butter isn’t enough peanut butter flavor for you, go ahead and add a cup of peanut butter chips as well.
- Are chocolate peanut butter cookies more your style? You can also add a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips to your cookie dough.
- While I prefer smooth or creamy peanut butter in this cookie recipe, you can use natural peanut butter. Just make sure you give it an extra good stir before adding it to your cookies to blend in the oil at the top. Crunchy peanut butter isn’t the right texture for these cookies.
- We regularly flatten peanut butter cookies with a fork as the dough isn’t as soft as other cookie doughs, so this ensures each cookie spreads evenly.
You may also enjoy these other peanut butter treats:
Peanut Butter Pie Made the Old-Fashioned Way
Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls (No Baking Necessary)
Peanut Butter Brownies with Peanut Butter Fudge Icing
Peanut Butter Cheesecake Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar dark or light, I prefer dark
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract I use the fake stuff
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup smooth peanut butter
Instructions
- In a large bowl, place all ingredients except flour.1 cup vegetable shortening, 1 cup white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 cup smooth peanut butter
- Mix until smooth and creamy with an electric mixer.
- Add the flour and mix until well combined. The cookie dough will look a little crumbly.3 cups all-purpose flour
- Form or scoop into balls about an inch and a half in diameter (can make them really big if you prefer).
- Place on a lightly greased baking sheet.
- Dip a fork or potato masher into extra granulated sugar and press into each cookie to form a criss-cross design.
- Bake at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes, until lightly brown around the edges.
Notes
“A good laugh is sunshine in the house.”
~William Thackeray. Submit your quote here!
My joke contribution:
Q: What do you call a chocolate covered sheep?
A: A Hershey baa!
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My son made me a Mother’s Day card when he was 6. (He’s 11 now) He wrote on it “Happy Mother’s Day! I love you a hole much!” It still hangs on my refrigerator to this day. I told my husband I’m saving it for future girlfriends—because they will have to be pretty durn special for him to love them “a hole much”!!
So convienent that you post this cookie recipe. March is National Peanut month or at least my son came home from Kindegarten with a note saying that! LOL!!! Little random information that you didn’t know before. Don’t you just love Kindegarten! LOL!!!
Sometimes I can’t help but think that Kindergartners hold all the knowledge of the world! Thanks for letting me know, I guess I did it right on time!
Making peanut butter cookies is one of my earliest kitchen memories because my mom let me make the tine marks. She always mad eme feel like I did it better than anyone. Building self confidence in kids is as important as feeding them. Feeling special and capable is a stepping stone of life.
I’m gonna have to quote this entire comment!
SO CLEVER to use the potato masher! Ingenious!
Oh, and BTW Christy, I LOVE the new jars you’re using in the pictures for flour and sugar … and you even have one for Cookies!!!
And I got a special giggle out of the My Little Pony who even made the photo shoot today! That silly Katy Rose!
Have a wonderful day, dahlin’! Yet another item to add to my ever-expanding list of “Great Things To Do With My Kids”!!!
LOVE the jokes!!! Had me giggling!!!
I see you really do stick to your guns that you’ll use either dark or light brown sugar…there’s both in one scoop in that photo!! hehe BTW, I like your potato masher idea! So much easier than using a fork. lol
Ok, so my joke…
How many elephants can you fit in a VW Bug?
Well four of course! Two in the front and two in the back!
I know…lame but it was the only one I could think of. lol
eh, its all about improvising! thanks for the joke! hehee
How do you fit 4 giraffes in aVW bug?
You can’t!! silly the elephants are still in there!!
My daughter said “I know you love me Mommy, but you are not the kind of mommy I was looking for”
LOL They are honest, aren’t they?
Brady told me once, when he was riding in the first float in a preschool parade “Mama, they’re gonna put me right up front because I have blonde hair and it makes people happy to see blonde hair.”
So I said “Really? Do you think they’ll be happy to see me too, then?”
He looked at me with the most pitying expression and shook his head gravely “No Mama, you don’t have blonde hair. Your hair is kinda yellow and its pretty and all but – it kinda makes people feel sick to see people with yellow hair so you better stay in the back.”
~blinks~
No idea where that came from but I had a giggle
OMG I would have a conniption if that were me! hehe
This is the same kid who told me last week “Mom, you kinda need to get some smaller clothes because yours are kinda too big for you now”.
All is redeemed 🙂
I wish I had to get smaller clothes! HA!
Here’s a true story for you!
When my son was a little fellow, in our church we would sing “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest”.
Years later he told me that he always thought we were singing “O Santa, O Santa” and he wondered why we were singing to Santa and where was the highest!
Santa was supposed to be at the North Pole!
Another part of the liturgy said “Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord” and somehow his little ears heard it as “Bless Tennessee”! He could not figure out why we were blessing Tennessee so much if we lived in Texas! From the mouths of babes!
You will be happy to know that this little boy is a fine man today, and has two little girls of his own!
I used to think “Hosanna” was “Susanna”. They really need to do something about that Hosanna words. It throws a lot of people off. 😉
Hehehe