The Last Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe You'll Ever Try

momofallboys's Note:

These are the most amazing cookies. They are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and freeze so well. You can't even tell they were frozen! The best part - they are drop cookies, no shaping necessary. If you love nuts, use crunchy peanut butter and add the nuts, if not, use creamy PB and 2 cups of peanut butter chips. Cook time is for one batch. Dough keeps well in fridge so you can bake a batch every day and have fresh cookies!

• Total Time: 25 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 80 cookies

• 1 ½ cups butter or 1 ½ cups margarine
• 1 ½ cups creamy peanut butter or 1 ½ cups crunchy peanut butter , your choice
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 ½ cups brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 2 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
• 3 ¾ cups flour
• 12 ounces peanut butter chips
• 1 cup nuts (optional)

Directions:

1. Cream peanut butter and margarine, add sugars and mix well.
2. Add eggs and mix until creamy.
3. Add remaining ingredients.
4. Chill for one hour-I usually skip this step and chill between batches.
5. Drop by teaspoonful onto cookie sheets- do not flatten.
6. Bake at 325°F for 15 minutes.
7. Cool on cookie sheets for about 5 minutes then transfer onto newspaper- the newspaper soaks up extra grease so the cookies don't become crumbly, little trick I learned from my MIL- this is also optional.
8. Edited to add - Immediately after the cookies are completely cooled I always transfer them to an airtight container. Several posters have mentioned the cookies get hard if you leave them out. I have never had that problem - these cookies have always stayed soft and moist if they are stored in an airtight container.

Reviews

[Chef #880889]

Very good cookies. I made the by the tablespoonful so they were a little bigger (added 2-3 minutes to the baking time). Also made the dough the day before, refrigerated and it was ready to go when I wanted. A big hit at out company bake sale!

[soda girl]

These really were delicious, and I stress were. They came out of the oven and are already all gone. I did change the recipe servings to 15 cookies and the changes were right on. My husband who is extemely picky about cookies said these are really, really good. I used natural peanut butter, too.

[Mickey in MN]

This is my "go to" recipe for PB Cookies now. I like that I can freeze them before baking. This year I used them in a cookie exchange and gave frozen dough balls so the recipients could bake fresh when they had depleted their other sweets. I also like frozen dough better than frozen cookies because it takes a little effort to snitch a cookie and I'm less likely to indulge if it takes more effort.