Simple Peanut Butter Cookies with Sprinkles

❤️Why you will love this recipe

• This is an easy peanut butter cookie recipe with rich peanut butter flavor.
• It uses simple ingredients and is fairly easy to make.
• No rolling and cutting or cookie cutters required. The cookies can be shaped by hand and decorated with a very simple crisscross pattern.
• The sprinkles in the cookies 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 will feel the little crackling sound of the sprinkles, giving the cookies nice little surprises with each bite.

📋Ingredients

• Peanut butter - I used smooth creamy peanut butter (regular 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 to make these cookies.
• Butter - I use salted butter. If you prefer to use unsalted butter, you can always do that, but add a small pinch of extra salt to the cookie dough, at the point when you cream the butter and sugars.
• Granulated sugar (caster sugar) - use fine white sugar. It gives the cookies a lovely crisp texture on the edges.
• Brown sugar - adds to the depth of the flavor and contributes to the chewy texture of the cookies. You can use both light brown sugar or dark brown sugar.
• Self-raising flour - best sifted before using to break any lumps.
• Egg - helps to combine and hold the cookie dough together.
• Vanilla extract - adds a lovely aroma and flavor to the cookies.
• Sprinkles - I used tiny colorful sprinkles. You can use any other types of sprinkles you prefer.

🧾Substitution and Variations

• Self raising flour can be substituted with all purpose flour. To make 100g of self raising flour, add two thirds of a teaspoon of baking powder to 100 g of all purpose flour. Mix well and sift at least 3 times before using.
• Change the color of the sprinkles to suit your occasion. You can use red and green if you are making these for Christmas and any other color combination for other occasions.

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 (granulated sugar and brown sugar) in a large bowl with an electric mixer (hand mixer or stand mixer). As soon as the mixture turns creamy, the egg is added into the sugar and butter mixture and beaten for about one minute until it is well incorporated into the creamed mixture and no traces of the egg are visible. 
• After the egg, the vanilla extract goes it and after a few seconds of mixing, the flour (the dry ingredients) is added into the creamed wet ingredients 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 with a 1 tablespoon capacity measuring spoon or cookie scoop and shape it into round balls. Place the balls of dough onto a parchment paper or cookie sheet lined baking tray making sure they are well spaced from one another. 
• Dip the tines of a fork in some flour and press the top of each cookie such that they are flattened slightly as shown in the image. Dipping the fork in flour before pressing on top of the dough ball helps in avoiding the cookie dough from sticking to the fork. If you like, you can even make hash mark or criss-cross pattern (fork marks) on the cookies with the fork.
• Bake the homemade peanut butter 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 cook 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 (cooling 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 or cookie jar.

🍽️Serving & storage

• The cookies are best consumed within 2 days of baking (chewy cookies). If you bake these cookies into crunchy cookies, they can last for a good 2 weeks if stored in an airtight container.

💡Expert Tips

• Self-raising flour 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.
• It is important to not 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.
• Place the cookies slightly apart in the baking tray to give room for spreading.
• Always use large egg and it is best to be at room temperature.
• The baking time for these cookies depends on the thickness of your cookies as well as the size. You will need to adjust the baking time accordingly if you adjust your cookie size.

💭FAQs