Ever had simple peanut butter cookies with sprinkles? The rich peanut butter taste in every bite is hard to ignore and is a treat everyone loves. If you are a peanut butter cookie lover, this is one recipe you would not want to miss.
Simple peanut butter cookies – soft & chewy cookies
The ingredients for these simple cookies are pretty basic. I think I can safely say that this recipe is pretty much a classic peanut butter cookies recipe except that I have added a little fun twist to them by adding bright colorful sprinkles into the batter.
And these sprinkles don’t just add color to the cookies, they also add more texture to these peanut butter treats. As you bite and chew the soft cookies, you would feel the little crackling sound of the sprinkles, giving the cookies nice little surprises with each bite.
I used smooth peanut butter in the cookies. But if you like a bit more crunch in your cookies, you can always use the chunky peanut butter instead.
Simple Peanut Butter Cookies – Video
Check out my video on how to make these simple peanut butter cookies:
How to Make Simple Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- Peanut butter
- Butter
- Caster sugar
- Brown sugar
- Self-raising flour
- Egg
- Vanilla essence
Mixing the cookie dough
- Mixing this peanut butter cookie dough is pretty straight forward. I started with the creaming of both the butters (butter and peanut butter) and the sugars (castor sugar and brown sugar). As soon as the mixture turns creamy, the egg is added in and beaten for about one minute until it is well incorporated into the creamed mixture and no traces of the egg are visible.
- It is important to note not to over-beat the butter and sugar mixture. For cookies, creaming them to the point where they become light and fluffy is not necessary, unlike cakes. In fact, creaming to this point should be avoided as it could lead to the cookies spreading too much during baking.
- After the egg, the vanilla essence goes it and after a few seconds of mixing, the flour is added in and mixed until it is just incorporated into the dough. And the final ingredient that goes into the cookie dough is the sprinkles.
- Mix only to the point where the sprinkles are all well distributed in the dough. At this point, the dough might appear a little sticky. Rest it in a covered bowl for about 5 minutes so that it comes together.
Shaping and baking the cookies
- Shaping these cookies is simple. Scoop tablespoons of dough and shape it into round balls. Place the balls onto a lined baking tray making sure they are well spaced from one another.
- Dip a fork in some flour and press the top of each cookie such that they are flattened slightly as shown below. Dipping the fork in flour before pressing on the cookies helps in avoiding the cookie dough from sticking to the fork.
- Bake the cookies at your normal cookies baking temperature. I baked mine for about 9 minutes at 175 degrees Celsius. At this temperate and cooking time, my cookies were only slightly crispy on the sides and soft in the center. For completely crunchy peanut butter cookies, leave the cookies to bake for a few minutes longer.
- Try not to remove the cookies off the parchment paper immediately after taking the cookies out of the oven as they tend to stick to the parchment when still hot. Let the cookies cool over a wire rack by transferring the entire cookies and parchment paper onto a wire rack. When they have cooled down, remove them from the paper and continue to cool them to room temperature before storing them in an airtight container.
Notes
Peanut Butter
- The peanut butter I used in these simple peanut butter cookies is the smooth variant. I have not tried making with the chunky peanut butter but I am guessing that it will yield as awesome cookies as the smooth peanut butter.
- And as always, I use salted butter in all my cookies and cakes. If you prefer to use unsalted butter, you can always do that, but add a pinch of salt to the cookie dough, at the point when you cream the butter and sugars.
Sugar
- And just like my best chocolate chip cookies here, I use both white and brown sugar in this recipe. I love the deep molasses-like taste the brown sugar imparts. Plus it is good for chewy cookies. So it is just the right type of sweetener for these versatile cookies. I call them versatile because if you let them bake a little longer than the specified time, you get lovely crispy peanut butter cookies, so this recipe is good to use for both chewy peanut butter cookies as well as crispy ones.
Flour
- As for the flour, if you notice, I have indicated self-raising flour. I like to use self-raising flour as it gives the cookies that little puffiness without making them spread too much. And since self-raising flour already has leavening agents in it, there is no need to add any more baking powder or baking soda to the dough.
- For the recipe indicated below, I have used one egg. I always use large eggs in all my baking and it is best to be used at room temperature.
Sprinkles
- Other than all these ingredients, the one additional ingredient I have added to give these simple and classic cookies a little twist is the colorful sprinkles.
- The ones I used are the really tiny colorful ones (also known as ‘hundreds and thousands’ in some places). I have not tried with any other type. But I am guessing that so long as they not the hard ones, it is OK to use them too. Too hard sprinkles might result in unpleasant cookies with too many ‘hard’ surprises as you bite and chew into them.
Baking Time
- Baking time and oven temperature may vary. I would suggest that you follow the baking temperature you normally use to bake cookies. Please also note that the cooking time will ultimately depend on the thickness of your cookies as well as the size. The baking time and temperature provided in this recipe are based on my oven setting.
Simple peanut butter cookies – soft & chewy cookies
Simple Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe
Here is the full, printable version of the simple peanut butter cookies recipe:
Simple Peanut Butter Cookies with Sprinkles
A simple peanut butter cookie recipe with a twist. Tiny colorful sprinkles added into the cookie dough yield cookies that are not only pleasing to the eyes, they are great on the taste too.
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Yield: 25 cookies
Ingredients
- 40 g peanut butter
- 50 g salted butter add a pinch of salt if using unsalted butter
- 50 g castor sugar
- 25 g soft brown sugar
- 100 g self-raising flour
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 30 g colourful sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 175°Celsius. Line baking tray with parchment paper.
- Sieve flour and keep it aside.
- In a clean bowl, cream the butter, peanut butter, castor sugar and brown sugar until creamy. Add the egg and continue beating until it is well incorporated.
- Next, vanilla essence and beat for about 15 seconds, followed by the sifted flour.
- Mix until it is just incorporated and then add the sprinkles. Give the dough a few seconds of machine mixing and continue by hand with a spatula to make sure the sprinkles are well incorporated.
- Rest the dough for about 5 minutes so that it comes together.
- To bake the cookies, take about 1 tbsp of dough and shape into round balls. Place the balls onto a lined baking tray. Repeat the process bearing in mind not to place the cookies too close to one another as they will spread during baking (since the recipe uses self-raising flour).
- Press the top of each cookie lightly with a fork to flatten them slightly (dip the fork into flour to prevent it from sticking to the cookies.
- Bake the cookies for about 9 minutes at 175°Celsius. At this temperate and cooking time, you will get peanut butter cookies that are slightly crispy on the edges and soft in the center. For crunchy peanut butter cookies (crunchy inside and out, bake the cookies for an extra 2 minutes).
- To cool the cookies, lift the parchment paper off the baking tray and place it on a wire rack. Let the cookies cool completely before removing them from the paper. The cookies tend to stick to the paper when they are still warm. Store cookies in an airtight container.
Tried this recipe?Mention @decorated_treats or tag #decoratedtreats!
And that’s pretty much my simple peanut butter cookies with sprinkles.
Simple peanut butter cookies – soft & chewy cookies
Here are my other posts you might want to check out:
- Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Christmas Sprinkle Cookies
- How to Color Sprinkles the Easy Way
Happy baking 🙂
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