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Old school style Soft and Crinkly Brown Sugar Peanut Butter Cookies. These are some of the best cookies…rich and decadent, yet shockingly easy to make. Made with sweet cane sugar and real maple syrups for a cookie that’s lightly sweetened, soft, and perfectly chewy. Every bite is warm, soft, and chewy in the center with melted chocolate throughout. So DELICIOUS. Absolutely nothing not to love about these salty-sweet peanut butter cookies. Bonus? These cookies are easy to make, use simple ingredients, and are just the cookies to bake up on the first Friday night of March.
Cookies to end the week! And not just any cookies, but some of my favorites yet. As crazy as this is, I don’t have many peanut butter cookie recipes. Sure, I have A LOT of peanut butter recipes, but the cookie department is lacking greatly.
It’s not on purpose, but more because I am so picky about peanut butter cookies. They have to be just right or I’m not excited about them.
Enter these soft, chewy old-school-style peanut butter cookies. I mentioned last week how inspired I am by “old school” recipes. You know, the ones our moms and grandmas would make. Classics, vintage, retro…no use of anything like almond flour, and nothing fancy about them.
Yes, those kinds of recipes. They’re always some of the best, and right now, they’re all I want to be creating.
So, the idea.
With the “old school” theme in mind, I really wanted to create that soft and chewy peanut butter cookie that you might have enjoyed on pizza day back in grade school. I’m not sure about you guys, but pizza day was very exciting as a kid throughout third, fourth, and fifth grade. Ours were just once a month, but they were the best.
We’d have pizza and an assortment of cookies…chocolate chip, peanut butter, and those frosted sugar cookies.
The peanut butter cookies were always so delicious, thin, soft, and chewy with the best peanutty flavor. These were cookies I really wanted to create…but with the addition of chocolate…because cookies need chocolate.
After a few rounds of testing, I came out with the cookies we have here today. They. Are. Perfect! And just what I’d envisioned.
Here are the simple details.
Honestly, these cookies are almost too good to be true. They’re delicious AND they’re the easiest to make.
First, the butter. You have got to use a good salted butter. I think the butter, along with the brown sugar and maple, are the elements that really make these cookies GOOD! So find a salted butter you love.
You’ll cream the butter together with the brown sugar and peanut butter until light and fluffy. The mix of brown sugar and maple leaves you with a cookie that’s just perfectly sweet and soft, but not in any way cakey, which is KEY. I despise a cakey peanut butter cookie.
Next, add the maple and a good splash of vanilla. Now add in the dry ingredients, plus a small pinch of salt.
Roll the dough into balls, then roll them through a little cane sugar, in true old-school peanut butter cookie form. Then bake away! No chilling required! Simple. Simple.
As with a lot of my cookie recipes, this one requires tapping that baking sheet on the counter midway through baking, then continue finish baking. When the cookies have completely finished baking, remove them from the oven, and tap the baking sheet once more. I say this with every cookie, but this step is KEY. It will ensure you have the least cakey peanut butter cookies. Tapping the baking pan on the counter deflates the center of the cookie, pushing the edges out.
Once the cookies are cool enough to handle, you can then take them through a dip of sweet melted chocolate. Or do as I do, and drizzle each warm cookie with chocolate and a sprinkle of sea salt…
Eat warm and enjoy every last, sweet, peanutty bite.
Oh so wonderfully delicious.
What I love about these cookies is that they’re easy to make, require no chilling, and take less than thirty minutes. And yes, they have all the old-school vibes I was going for. Soft and oh so chewy in the center with the perfect peanut flavor and hints of maple throughout.
The warm chocolate just seals the deal and keeps everyone coming back for more.
A little advice? Bake these tonight…because everyone has thirty minutes to bake up cookies. Then eat a few warm, and welcome in the weekend!
Looking for other fun cookie recipes? Here are some favorites:
Brown Butter Malted Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Snickerdoodle Peanut Butter Chocolate Chex Mix Bars
Slice n’ Bake Bourbon Caramel Pretzel Cookies
Lastly, if you make these Soft and Crinkly Brown Sugar Peanut Butter Cookies be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!
Soft and Crinkly Brown Sugar Peanut Butter Cookies
Servings: 16 cookies
Calories Per Serving: 238 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Ingredients
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup dark or light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup real maple syrup
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 8-12 ounces semi-sweet or milk chocolate, melted
- 1/4 cup cane sugar, for rolling (optional)
- flaky sea salt, for sprinkling
Instructions
- 1. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.2. In a mixing bowl, beat together the butter, brown sugar, and peanut butter until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. Beat in the maple syrup, then add the egg and vanilla. Beat until creamy. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. 3. Scoop the dough out into rounded 1 tablespoon size balls and then roll through the sugar, the dough will be a little wet. Place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet. 4. Bake 7 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and tap the baking sheet on the counter 2 times to flatten them down. Return to the oven and bake another 3 minutes, until the cookies are just beginning to set on the edges, but still doughy in the center. Remove from the oven and tap the baking sheet on the counter 1-2 times to flatten them down again. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet. They will continue to cook slightly as they sit on the baking sheet. 5. Drizzle or dip the cookies in chocolate and sprinkle with salt. Eat…or let the chocolate harden and store in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
LOVE this recipe! I dipped them in ganache and sprinkled with chopped nuts & salt. My family loved them.
Hi Lisa,
Happy Friday🍁 I appreciate you making this recipe and love to hear that it turned out well for you! xT
These cookies are phenomenal! A couple notes: I found the taking them out partway through baking/tapping thing completely unnecessary. I bake them for 13-14 min in my oven and they are such a soft dough that they spread into a perfect cookie shape on their own. I like to put chocolate chips in them instead of drizzling them with chocolate…much easier and less messy! I also strongly recommend doubling this recipe to have a more “normal” size batch of cookies.
Hey Sarah,
Happy Monday!! I love to hear that this recipe was a winner, thanks for making it:) Thanks for sharing what worked well for you! xTieghan
I’ve been dying to make these for a long time now and today was the day! They are so de’lish! I followed your cookie recipe exact but made my own recipe for the cocoa glaze because I didn’t have any choc to melt down. (Glaze was butter, cocoa, vanilla, espresso powder melted, and then added powdered sugar and milk.) Love your recipes! Thanks
Hey there,
Awesome!! Thanks a bunch for trying this recipe, I love to hear that it was a hit! Have the best weekend!? xxTieghan
So good!! Family loved them! Followed exact instructions and turned out perfect! Thanks so much!
Hey Chris,
Happy Friday!! I am thrilled to hear that this recipe was enjoyed, thanks a bunch for giving it a go! xxT
I made these for Easter and I doubled the recipe. They were soooo good, the dough tasted like peanut butter frosting. The dough was so moist I gave up trying to roll them in my hand. I scooped the dough with a spoon then rolled the dough in the spoon over the sugar and used a spatula to plop it on the pan.
Taking them out at the 7min mark and hitting the pan to flatten them is a must.
I love your recipes so much thanks for sharing.
Hey Amy,
Thanks so much for making this recipe, I love to hear that it was enjoyed!! xTieghan
Loved the recipe. Not too heavy on the peanut butter taste which I liked? Do you think they would freeze well? There are only two of us. Even though we could eat them all I’m sure.
Hey Beth,
Thanks so much for making this recipe and sharing your feedback, I love to hear that it was enjoyed!! You can totally freeze these! xTieghan
These cookies are my absolute favorite! Most recently, I made them with Cup4Cup gluten free flour and you wouldn’t know it! I skip rolling them in sugar and I drizzle the chocolate on with a fork. I found that I had to thin my melted chocolate out with some coconut oil so I could get the desired drizzle effect. So easy, so delicious…I’d happily make them once a week ?
Hey JoAnn,
Awesome!! Love to hear this recipe was a winner, thanks for making it. Have the best week:) xT
Wow! So yummy and everyone I gave them to agreed! I fit 12 on a half sheet pan and the rest on a quarter sheet. My dough was pretty soft so I scooped and dropped straight into the sugar and that worked out fine. I added some chopped peanuts into my melted chocolate and the texture with the soft cookie was sooo fun!
Hi Kay,
Awesome!! Thanks a bunch for trying this recipe out, I love to hear that it was a winner! xTieghan
Just made these! DELICIOUS!!!! They are soft and melt in your mouth. The cane sugar gives them a nice crunch! I like them plain as well as dipped in the chocolate! Yum!
Hi Amy,
Wonderful! I am thrilled to hear that this recipe was enjoyed, thanks for making it. Have the best weekend:) xTieghan
Made these cookies all the way in Australia and loved them! Instead of making chocolate to drizzle/dip into, we just added choc chips into the mixture before putting in the oven. Worked out well and I think the bits of choc helped with the sometimes overpowering peanutty taste.
We did find it quite hard to roll the mixture in the cane sugar as it was quite wet and didn’t stay in a ball when rolling – we ended up sprinkling the cane sugar over the top of the cookies before putting in the oven and it worked well.
Hi Sarah,
Thank you so very much for trying this recipe, I love to hear that it was enjoyed! xxTieghan
I used gluten free flour and it was super yummy. New family favorite!!
Hey Rebecca,
Awesome!! I love to hear that this recipe was enjoyed, thanks a lot for making it. Have the best week! xTieghan
I followed the instructions / recipe exactly and ended up with puffy, cake cookies vs chewy similar to some of these reviews. Any suggestion?????
Hi Sarah,
These cookies are definitely more on the puffy/cake side, if you can refer to the photos, they are not a flat, crispy cookie. Please let me know if you have any other questions! xTieghan
Can I use crunchy peanut butter?
Hi Cassie,
Sure! Please let me know if you give the recipe a try, I hope you love it! xTieghan
These are delicious! I found mine needed to bake another 1-2 minutes. Definitely will work into my normal cookie rotation. & will be perfect for giving next week for Christmas!!
Hi Angela,
Happy Sunday!! Thanks a lot for giving this recipe a try, I am so glad to hear it was enjoyed. Happy Holidays!? xx
These are amazing! Need to make for a crowd. Can I just double the recipe or should I make 2 separate batches?
Hey Evan,
Wonderful! I love to hear that this recipe was enjoyed, thanks a lot for giving it a try! You can double the recipe. Happy Holidays! xTieghan