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The Best Peanut Butter Cookies - Soft and Chewy

Four peanut butter cookies sitting on four small white pedestals. All of them are sitting on a wooden board.
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4.8 from 5 reviews

When you bite into one of these luscious peanut butter cookies you get a mouthful of creamy milk chocolate and a silky taste of peanut butter. There’s a golden crunch on the outside while the center is soft and sugary.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 cup Crisco
  • 1 cup Creamy Peanut Butter
  • 1 cup White Granulated Sugar
  • 1 cup Light Brown Sugar
  • 2 large Eggs
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla (Pure or Imitation)
  • 2 1/4 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 2 teaspoons Baking Soda
  • 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
  • 36 Chocolate Kisses, unwrapped

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350°F.
  • In a large mixing bowl, cream Crisco, peanut butter, and sugars. Beat for five minutes until light and fluffy.
  • Add one egg at a time and continue beating, one minute for each egg.
  • Add vanilla.
  • In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, soda, and salt.
  • Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix until all the ingredients have been combined. Be careful not to over-mix.
  • Roll the dough into 1-1 1/2 inch balls and place on a cookie sheet.
  • Using a fork dipped in granulated sugar, make criss-cross marks as you press down on the balls to flatten them slightly.
  • Bake for 10-12 minutes or just until they begin to look golden brown. Don't over-bake.
  • Add a chocolate kiss on top of each cookie, pressing down slightly to make an indentation into the cookie.
  • Remove from the hot cookie sheet onto a wire baking rack to cool.
  • ENJOY!

Notes

  • Creaming isn't about stirring or mixing ingredients together but it's about whipping air into the fat and sugar until it's feathery and fluffy.
  • The creaming step is so vital to any cookie recipe that you absolutely don't want to skip it. The batter itself becomes plumb and lighter in texture which in turn creates a cookie that is thicker and fluffier.
  • Continue to beat after the addition of each egg, one minute per egg. That gives you a total of seven minutes before you ever add in the dry ingredients.
  • In baked goods, there is no substantial difference of taste in either imitation or pure vanilla. And if you've looked at the cost of both, you would definitely lean toward the imitation vanilla since the price tag of pure is so steep.
  • Using a rubber spatula, make sure and scrape around the bowl in order to get all the creamed ingredients mixed into the batter. Be careful not to over mix, otherwise, you can end up with cookies that are tough
  • Using a fork dipped in granulated sugar, make criss-cross marks as you press down on the balls to flatten them slightly. Not too much though, as we want thicker results.
  • Before you start baking batches, place two cookies on the cookie sheet, bake one for 10 minutes and the other for 12 and let both of them cool. This way you can test which time works best for your oven.
  • There's no need to grease your cookie sheet with these Peanut Butter Cookies. Between the peanut butter and Crisco, there's enough fat in these cookies for them to not stick to the pan. If you grease the pan with high-fat cookies, it can cause them to spread too much and create a thin cookie.
  • It's important to remove the cookies from the hot pan when they come out of the oven. Otherwise, they will continue to cook. Place them on a wire baking rack to cool.

Nutrition

Find it online: https://lingeralittle.com/peanut-butter-cookies/