A sweet & simple recipe for soft, chewy peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies loaded with melty milk chocolate candy bar pieces. Recipe includes a how-to video!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
I have a short and sweet post for you today. Partly because this recipe is so simple it needs little introduction or explanation, and partly because I’m currently still in a sugar coma from excessive chocolate bunny consumption yesterday.
I don’t often buy candy (because let’s be honest there’s more than enough sugar in my life anyway) but Zach’s mom always gives us an Easter basket full of our favorites, and we’ve already demolished over half of it so far. Things aren’t looking too good for the second half right now, either.
But anyway, let’s talk peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies. If the recipe looks familiar to you, that’s because it is, it’s a hybrid between my popular soft and chewy best peanut butter cookies and my peanut butter blossoms. I’m completely obsessed with this recipe because it yields the softest, butteriest/peanut-butteriest cookies.
Butter All The Way
Most peanut butter chocolate chunk cookie recipes use shortening rather than butter. Considering that peanut butter has a distinct enough flavor that you shouldn’t notice the lack of butter, and that shortening has a higher fat content (which should mean softer cookies) I didn’t challenge this for a long time. For years I made my peanut butter cookies with shortening.
But the flavor and texture always fell flat! The cookies crumbled too easily! The flavor wasn’t bad, but couldn’t it be improved? I wanted a cookie that was soft and chewy like my chocolate chip cookies, but obviously with a distinct peanut butter flavor (and with buttery undertones, not shortening ones!).
This is that recipe! Soft and chewy with a distinct peanut butter flavor (enhanced by real butter), once you try it you’ll never go back to shortening based recipes again. Pair it with milk chocolate candy pieces and you’ve got yourself a dream cookie.
Ok, I’m sorry, I promised you a short and sweet post today and here I am rambling about butter and shortening.
Just one more quick word about chocolate. I chopped up chocolate Hershey bars for these peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies; while I’m a dark chocolate girl at heart, nothing pairs quite as well with peanut butter as milk chocolate. You can use your preferred variety of chocolate (chocolate chips will also work) and if you found yourself with a surplus of Hershey bars or milk chocolate bunnies in your Easter basket yesterday, well what a great way to use them!
Enjoy!
Other Recipes You Might Like:
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Ingredients
- 10 Tablespoons unsalted butter softened (140g)
- ⅔ cup brown sugar, firmly packed light or dark (135g)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar (50g)
- ½ cup creamy peanut butter¹ (140g)
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- ½ teasoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour (185g)
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch (cornflour in the UK)
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 8 oz milk chocolate², coarsely chopped (I used 5 Hershey bars)
Instructions
- Combine butter, sugars, and peanut butter in a large bowl and use an electric mixer (you can use a stand mixer instead) to beat until creamy and well-combined.
- Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and stir well.
- In separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt.
- Gradually, with mixer on low speed, stir flour mixture into peanut butter mixture, pausing occasionally to scrape down sides of bowl.
- Use a spatula to stir in chocolate pieces.
- Cover cookie dough with plastic wrap and transfer to refrigerator. Chill for at least 30 minutes.
- Once dough is almost finished chilling, preheat oven to 350F/175C. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Once cookie dough has chilled and oven has preheated, remove dough from fridge and scoop cookie dough into roughly 1 ½ Tablespoon-sized balls. If desired, gently roll into balls between your palms and then place onto prepared cookie sheets.³
- Place cookies at least 1 ½ inches apart on prepared baking sheets and bake for about 12 minutes.
- Allow cookies to cool completely on baking sheet before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
This recipe was originally published on March 9th, 2016. Photos updated and recipe improved and updated April 22, 2019.
Janet
Can I use milk chocolate chips instead of the chocolate candy bars? Thank you!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Yes! Enjoy 😊
Paige Larson
Another home run recipe from you!
Coley
So I have to say I’m very disappointed. It’s a sad day in any amateur baker’s book when a family asks not once, nor twice, but thrice in the same month for a specific cookie to be made. With so many thousands, heck millions, of cookie recipes available one would think a family would actually like or even wish for something new. Especially considering when the recipe includes PEANUT BUTTER in the title and two family members don’t even eat peanut butter, like ever. So there we get to it, making this cookie, this wonderfully thick yet soft and delicious cookie that will forever be added to the cookie recipe box in our home 🙂
I did make one adjustment that they love. I use one Hershey’s bar, one pip row of Baker’s brand 100% unsweetened cacao, one pip row of the Baker’s brand 48% sweetened German chocolate, and both Nestlé Dark Chocolate Chips and Mini semisweet chips, added altogether to the weight you have notated. That way there’s some chocolate in their for everyone and each bite is different. I also add Nestle Espresso chips to my daughter’s ones. So that was my only contribution to this underwhelming and immediately inhaled cookie recipe!
Hope I made everyone smile! Thank you for real!
Sam
🤣 I’m so glad everyone enjoyed them so much! 🙂
Sharon Firester
Hi Sam, I made these peanut butter cookies and the were a huge hit (great flavor), but they were pretty dense as opposed to your nice round flat cookies. The only change I made was I used Ghiridelli milk chocolate chips instead of Hershey chocolate bars. Any clue as to what might have gone wrong? Did I use too much dough? I wound up with one less cookie than what your recipe called for. Should the eggs have been room temperature even though you didn’t say they should be? They were slightly crumbly, but tasted amazing. I also made your double chocolate chip cookies which also were quite dense and yes I melted the butter and let it cool. Not sure why both batches came out so dense, but yes, they were a hit!!
Sam
I’m so sorry this happened, Sharon! I’m wondering if by dense you mean they didn’t flatten out quite the same way? If this is the case then you may have accidentally over-measured the flour. I’m glad you still enjoyed them. 🙂