Big Bakery Style Peanut Butter Cookies

These cookies are not your average cookie. They are big bakery style peanut butter cookies. Not dry; but chewy, sweet and salty with crisp edges and crunchy sugar on top.

I already have three peanut butter cookie recipes: Easy Honey Roasted Peanut Butter Cookies, Cinnamon Peanut Butter Cookies and Chewy Peanut Butter Oreo Cookies. So why create another one? Well, because you can never have too many cookie recipes?

What even are bakery style peanut butter cookies? To me, bakery style first means big. Now mine are not the ‘these are as big as my head’ big, but they are larger than your average cookie. They often have golden crispy edges and chewy soft middles that almost feel under baked but they aren’t. They always have a peanut butter one that just looks to die for. I needed one of those that feels classic but a little extra.

Baking Notes & Tips

If you want to bake BIG bakery style peanut butter cookies you’re gonna need a BIG cookie scoop. I scoop these with my #16 scoop which is a 1/4 cup scoop. Now, can you make these smaller? Sure, but you’re not going to get the same cookie. Sure it will taste the same more or less but a cookie that big is going to be a little bit different in the center than on the edges. It’s a lot of cookie!

These cookies use melted butter to help create the chewy dense interior without having to under bake the cookie. Many cookies get that texture by telling you to reduce your baking time, but with a big cookie like this you will end up with a raw center. I reduced the baking time by 2 minutes and the cookies more or less fell apart when I tried to pick them up. When you cream soft butter with sugar you whip air into it, creating a more cake like center. Melted butter will give a fudgier center, like brownies.

Use traditional creamy peanut butter, like Jif or Skippy. Regular peanut butter is much better emulsified than natural, which will help with the texture. I chose to add peanut butter chips to these. Also, I chopped them up. I wanted the extra bits of peanut butter flavor without really feeling like you’re eating a cookie with chips in it. It allows you to get little bits and flakes of the peanut butter in every bite. You can omit these all together, or just put them in without chopping and still have a great cookie.

Lastly I wanted to top these with coarse sugar to get a little texture and extra sweetness. Then, add a tiny bit of flaky salt so it’s truly a sweet and salty experience. Plus, most cookies are just better with flaky sea salt. But just like with the peanut butter chips, this is not required, and you can easily just skip this step. That being said, don’t skip either because they both make this cookie SO good!

Big Bakery Style Peanut Butter Cookies Key Ingredients

• Peanut Butter – When you’re making most peanut butter cookie recipes, they will tell you not to use natural peanut butter. It separates much easier and can be oily. You want to use regular old peanut butter. I used Creamy Jif to make these.
• Bread Flour – I like using bread flour in things that aren’t bread. Especially if they need to be chewy. I use a little bit of bread flour in my Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, and my Big Batch Chewy Brownies also use bread flour. It is a subtle change but it helps with texture. You can use AP, but if you have bread flour or have access to it I really recommend it.
• Peanut Butter Chips – For a little bit of extra peanut butter goodness. You can omit and these still have tons of peanut butter flavor.

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