Chewy Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe - The Carefree Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to chewy cookies? ›

Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.

The ingredients you use and how you shape your cookies both play an important role in whether your cookies turn out crispy or chewy. The type of flour and sugar you use, if your cookie dough contains eggs, and whether you use melted or softened butter all factor into the crispy-chewy equation, too.

If your peanut butter cookies are hard, you likely cooked them for too long. They should not be baked for more than 8 or 9 minutes.

I was shocked to discover that these peanut butter cookies were flourless. But if you think about it in terms of baking theory and pastry techniques, it makes sense—peanut butter contains so much fat that it doesn't really need that much flour for structure and gluten.

Bread flour contains a higher protein content (around 12-14%), leading to more gluten development. This makes it ideal for bakers seeking a chewier texture in their cookies. The extra gluten can help retain gas and moisture, producing a denser and chewier result.

Baking at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature will help cookies stay soft: they'll bake faster which means they aren't in the hot, drying air of the oven too long. Pull the cookie sheet out of the oven when the cookies are just set: underbaking is better than overbaking.

Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.

Different types of sugars affect the texture because they absorb different amounts of water. Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies.

This may not sound like a lot, but it is enough that it can affect the quality of your cookies – adding too much peanut butter can make them dry, hard, and crumbly.

These early recipes do not explain why the advice is given to use a fork, though. The reason is that peanut butter cookie dough is dense, and unpressed, each cookie will not cook evenly. Using a fork to press the dough is a convenience of tool; bakers can also use a cookie shovel (spatula).

What happens if you don't flatten peanut butter cookies? ›

If you don't flatten the cookies first, then the fork does double duty – it performs both functions. One very subtle result of creating the pattern is that the little tips of dough bake up crisper than the rest of the cookie, giving you both a bit of additional texture and deeper taste where the dough is more baked.

Your other source of fat should be butter, not shortening. Butter will make your cookies taste buttery; shortening will make them taste suspiciously vacant, like Katy Perry's voice post-autotune. Yes, shortening yields chewier cookies than butter does, because butter contains water and shortening doesn't.

If you opt for all cake flour cookies, less gluten is formed when you mix the cookie dough. The resulting cookie consistency post-baking is delicate, softer, fluffier, and, well, more cake-like. The color may end up paler, and the edges might not be as crispy. But the flavor should still deliver.

So it looks like that there are utilitarian reasons for the cross-hatching—to allow for even cooking—but it might have been passed along for nearly a hundred years for primarily aesthetic reasons, where the cross-hatching is more to identify the cookies as peanut butter ones, rather than to cook them well.

The extra egg yolk helps to add more moisture and richness, for a soft and chewy texture. The other trick is found in the size of the dough ball…. a whole 3 tablespoons in each! This creates larger cookies that spread out perfectly with ultra-soft centers.

Chill the cookie dough.

Chilling cookie dough helps prevent spreading. The colder the dough, the less the cookies will over-spread into greasy puddles. You'll have thicker, sturdier, and more solid cookies. Whenever I make cookies, I plan ahead and chill the cookie dough overnight.