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I have discovered a couple of tricks to bakery-style cookies and the result was these crazily decadent, thick & chewy peanut butter chocolate chip cookies!

Thick & Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

We all know that I love a good chocolate chip cookie recipe and there is nothing like a crispy peanut butter cookie. But hey, I also love chocolate chip and peanut butter so these cookies were next on this list!

I am pretty sure that I have discovered a couple of tricks to bakery-style cookies. Or maybe not. This may not be the way that bakeries get those huge yet flat cookies that are all the same shape and thickness, all the way around. However this is the way that *I* will now get those perfect cookies at home without using shortening ( the usual trick for commercial bakeries) or huge ovens that bake perfectly.

Butter – softened for the best results
Brown sugar – always make sure it’s packed for proper measurements
Egg– large
Vanilla extract – using a little more vanilla amplifies the taste of the chocolate in baked goods
Peanut butter– creamy or chunky up to you
All purpose flour
Baking soda
Salt
Semi-sweet chocolate chips – you can do dark chocolate as well but milk chocolate would be very sweet!

How to Make Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cream the butter and sugar together.
Mix in the egg until combined, then add in the peanut butter and vanilla
extract. Mix well.
Whisk the dry ingredients together then add to the butter mixture, mixing
together thoroughly.
Mix in the chocolate chips by hand until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
Place by rounded cookie scoop onto parchment lined baking sheets.
Bake in the oven for 14-15 minutes, or until golden brown all over.

peanut butter chocolate chip cookies in cooling rack

Don’t flatten them AT ALL before baking.

Even if they stay a dome shape – which they will on non-humid days – don’t worry. The trick to not having the edges brown too much like the ones on the left is to start them out in the ice cream scoop size. If they are still a dome shape you simply take a spatula or a flat flipper/turner and slowly press down on the freshly baked cookie, right when they come out of the oven. That’s how you get those beautiful crinkled little edges that the cookie on the right has. If you are baking on a humid day, odds are that your dough will be stickier than usual. Try adding another 2- 3 tablespoons of flour to make it less sticky but odds are they are still going to bake up thick and chewy if you still adhere to the DO NOT FLATTEN BEFORE BAKING RULE.

cookies showing the difference between the two flattening methods

Oh, did I say ice cream scoop a few seconds ago?

Yes, I did. And ice cream scoop is the perfect size to make these large and in charge cookies. Yes, you only end up with 12-16 cookies from this recipe, but they are huge cookies.

rounded cookie scoops in parchment lined baking sheet

Also: If all else fails, cut the butter.

Less butter has always meant thicker, chewier cookies and is the secret to my popular Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.

If these aren’t as thick as you want, cut the butter down to 1/3 cup of a cup. Cookies are a persnickety lot. If you live somewhere humid, they’ll spread out and flatten like a pancake.

Yesterday, these turned out perfectly and I had to use a flipper to flatten them into the thick, chewy, delicious delights below. They were PERFECT DOMES that didn’t even shift from their original shape.

Today I used the same recipe to make sure that they are still great and they flattened out all on their own because it’s snowing here in Edmonton. I could have added that 2-3 tablespoons of flour, but to be honest they turned out just as great as the ones below.

close up peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies Tips & Tricks

Now, I know that YOU know this, but the secret to the best cookies is to under bake them slightly. These just need to be browned all lovely on the outside and under baked on the inside. Fifteen minutes were perfect for mine, but watch yours and see. If you over bake them, they will still be delicious, but not chewy!
So in order to get these cookies that thick, you are going to have to work a little. Try one out on your cookie sheet and if it flattens, add some more flour to the dough. Odds are that we are going to have more humid days than not, now that winter is here.
If flour doesn’t work, cut that butter down to 1/3 of a cup in your next batch. You might have to eat a few batches before you get the feel for what your dough should be like ( it’s not a super-sticky dough, by the way) and I know that taste testing thick and chewy peanut butter chocolate chip cookies is going to be a hard job.

More great cookie recipes:

You got this.

Love you more than chocolate,

Karlynn