Big Bakery-Style Peanut Butter Chunk Cookies
Probably 25 by now.
The number of times I’ve talked about how much I love Wegmans bakery cookies. (A grocery store. But so much more! It’s a bonafide foodie paradise!)
And 4.
The number of times I tried to recreate their ♥ peanut butter chunk cookies ♥
At least 8.
How many cups of peanut butter I went through in the process.
But it was all very worth it. See:
Taste testing was obviously delicious and now we can all make those giant & mega peanut buttery cookies that we often find in bakeries. At home! In our own kitchens! This is very dangerous for all parties involved. Especially our bathing suits.
Let’s chat about how you can make them. I started with a base recipe: my classic peanut butter cookies and began working from there. The first thing I want you to do is take a peek at the 5 cookie baking tips I posted the other day. You’ll put each tip to practice here. Chilling the cookie dough is important, but this dough is incredibly thick and quite solid, so it doesn’t need hours inside the refrigerator. 1 hour will get the job done. You’ll cream room temperature butter with both brown sugar + granulated sugar, but remember to avoid over-creaming them for minutes on end. This will incorporate too much air inside the cookies which will cause them to deflate and, as a result, spread all over your baking sheets.
When testing this new recipe, I played around with the amount of sugars– both of them. I decided to go with a little more granulated sugar than brown sugar to encourage the cookies to spread out more. In my first batch, I used a higher ratio of brown sugar to granulated sugar (this gives you super soft, thick, tender cookies) but they didn’t spread AT ALL. They were baked peanut butter blobs, not cookies. Tasty, but too thick– and they wouldn’t cook in the centers.
I also played around with the amount of peanut butter, testing the limits to see just how much we can get away with in the cookie dough. Starting with 1 and 1/4 cups then 1 and 1/2 and finally working my way up to 2. So, I ended up doubling the amount of peanut butter that I use in the original recipe. 2 cups you guys!! This was massively eye-opening and even more surprising to me. The cookies are exploding with peanut butter. Front and center, highly concentrated peanut butter flavor.
It’s a downright win all around.
Nut butters are weird. They act like flour in cookies– remember these, these, and these flourless nut butter cookies? So with all that peanut butter, I actually ended up reducing the flour because the cookies were crumbling too much. You’ll still have a little crumble, but that’s a given with peanut butter cookies.
I don’t know how you feel about this, but I added chopped peanuts to the cookie dough. You can certainly leave them out and either keep the cookies plain or add chocolate chips or chocolate chunks. Which I highly recommend because the chocolate compliments the intense peanut butter flavor. (Duh.) I know what you’re thinking: can I just use chunky peanut butter instead? I tried that. The cookies were wildly crumbly. I think because crunchy peanut butter just isn’t as creamy as creamy peanut butter. No surprise there, right? So I just added my own peanuts. I make a lot of cookies around here, but these bakery style peanut butter cookies with the CRUNCH of peanuts inside are easily top 10. Welcome to the regular rotation, peanut butter beauties. You’ll be seeing me a lot.
The cookies are very big and very bold. 3 Tablespoons of dough in each one, then you’ll slightly flatten each cookie dough ball with your fingers. I always like to roll peanut butter cookies in a little granulated sugar before baking. Gives them a pretty sparkle because without it, they can appear a little dull. Always go with a sparkle. Because the cookie dough balls are so large, the cookies take awhile to bake. Each batch took about 14 minutes, but remember that your cookies could take longer or shorter depending on your oven. Once the cookies look almost set in the centers and lightly browned on the edges, they’re all done and ready for their glass of milk.
Approx 40,000.
How many adorable crinkles and crackles on top of each cookie. / How many you’ll want to eat. / And also maybe how many calories are in each but we can ignore that.
Big Bakery-Style Peanut Butter Chunk Cookies
Prep Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours
Yield: 24 cookies
Category: Cookies
Method: Baking
Cuisine: American
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PinDescription
Here’s how to make big bakery-style peanut butter chunk cookies right at home. They’re thick, soft, very addicting, and filled with chocolate chips!
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/2 cups (310g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (230g; 2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 cups (500g) creamy peanut butter*
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/2 cups (270g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
- optional: 1/2 cup (65g) finely chopped peanuts
- optional: 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar for rolling
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and both sugars together on medium speed until smooth, about 1-2 minutes. Add the eggs and beat on high until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the peanut butter and vanilla, then mix on high until combined.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. With the mixer running on low speed, add the chocolate chips and peanuts, if using. Dough will be thick and soft.
- Chill the dough for 1 hour in the refrigerator (and up to 2-3 days). If chilling for longer than a few hours, though, allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard and the cookies may not spread that much.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line 2-3 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. (Always recommended for cookies.) Set aside.
- Roll cookie dough into large balls, about 3 Tablespoons of dough per cookie (it’s a lot!), and then roll the balls in granulated sugar. Place 8 balls onto the cookie sheets. Gently press down on each ball to *slightly* flatten. Bake each batch for 14-15 minutes until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look very soft.
- Remove from the oven. If the cookies are still very puffy, you can gently press down on the warm cookies with the back of a spoon. Let cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week. You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 2-3 days. Allow to come to room temperature then continue with step 5. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Click here for my tips and tricks on freezing cookie dough.
- Peanut Butter: It’s best to use a commercial brand peanut butter like Jif creamy or Skippy creamy. I do not suggest using natural style, oily peanut butter. Avoid using crunchy peanut butter; I found it made the cookies super crumbly.
- Check out my top 5 cookie tips before beginning. It includes how to prevent cookies from over-spreading and why room temperature makes a difference.
Keywords: bakery style peanut butter cookies, peanut butter chunk cookies
The contractors ate 21 of these cookies yesterday. There were a ton of guys here, but still. I only have 3 left!
A blog that mushroomed from visual enlightenment.
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