When I think of peanut butter cookies my mind instantly recalls those perfectly round cookies with the fork-hashed “X” in the center. But what if I told you TK member Bellelatte does it one better? What if I told you Melissa takes your everyday peanut butter cookie and transcends it into a realm of pure confection perfection?
How can that be? Two words: brown butter.
Yes, brown butter is the bees-knees. It’s what makes the world go round. Well, at least it makes my world go round, and after you taste these cookies I bet you’ll feel the same way.
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a medium bowl, combine the white sugar with the brown sugar and set aside.
In a medium (10-inch) skillet, slowly melt 2 sticks of unsalted butter over medium-low heat.
Continue to stir as the butter bubbles.
Once the milk solids have sunk to the bottom of the pan and turned the prettiest shade of brown, remove the pan off the heat.
Now you can add the sugars into the browned butter.
Slowly stir to combine and let cool for 10 minutes or so.
In a large bowl, add the creamy peanut butter and the honey.
Then add in the cooled browned butter-sugar mixture.
Mix that until just combined.
Crack and add in 1 egg and the 1/4 cup of milk.
Then blend until smooth.
Gradually add in the dry ingredients a little at a time and mix after each addition.
Stop once the dough comes together.
Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. This gives the dough a chance to cool and solidify so the cookies don’t melt into one giant blob on your cookie sheet. So as hard as it may seem, do not skip this step.
Once the cookie dough has had the chance to cool, measure and form into 1-inch balls.
With a fork, press down to make the traditional “X” in each of the cookies.
Slide the cookies into a preheated 350ºF oven and bake for 9-10 minutes.
The second the cookies come out of the oven, sprinkle with a little granulated sugar. Once they’ve had a chance to cool and are firm enough, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely and repeat with the remaining cookie dough.
Light and flaky, these cookies will no doubt melt in your mouth. Promise.
If you’re a brown butter fan then these delicate brown-butter peanut butter cookies will win you over, big time. I think it’s safe to say I won’t go back to making regular peanut butter cookies ever again.
After you’re done whipping up these cookies, be sure to raid Bellelatte’s recipe box for more sweet treats. Thank you Melissa for sharing this wonderful recipe with us!
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Description
I have an obsession with browned butter, so incorporating it into peanut butter cookies seemed like a great idea—and it was!
Ingredients
- ½ cups Light Brown Sugar
- ½ cups Granulated Sugar, Plus Extra To Sprinkle On Top Of Baked Cookies
- 2 sticks Unsalted Butter
- 1-⅓ cup All-purpose Flour
- 2-½ teaspoons Baking Powder
- ½ teaspoons Baking Soda
- ¼ teaspoons Salt
- 1 cup Creamy Peanut Butter
- ½ teaspoons Honey
- 1 whole Egg
- ¼ cups Milk
Preparation Instructions
1. In a large bowl, mix brown sugar and granulated sugar.
2. Brown the butter in a medium saucepan and add to the sugars. Set aside and allow mixture to cool for about ten minutes.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. Once butter is cooled, add peanut butter and honey and beat on medium speed just until smooth. Beat in egg. Mix in milk.
5. Add the flour mixture and mix just until dough comes together.
6. Cover and refrigerate dough for at least two hours or up to overnight.
7. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
8. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Flatten by pressing down with a fork, while holding the sides of the cookie in order to maintain a circular shape. Press the fork into the cookie again in a perpendicular angle to the first indentation, forming a crosshatch pattern.
9. Bake until cookies begin to brown around the edges but centers still look somewhat doughy, about 9–10 minutes.
10. Immediately upon removing from the oven, sprinkle sugar on the tops of the cookies and let cool on baking sheets until firm enough to handle, then transfer to a wire rack.
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Laurie is the force behind Simply Scratch, a blog that documents her efforts to find and create recipes that are made simply from scratch. (We think it’s sweet that her mother-in-law helped her set up her blog and get started.) We love her recipes; they’re not just tried and true, but they look gorgeous as well. Check out her blog and you’ll become a fan too.
31 Comments
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Tony on 5.8.2012
I’ll take a dozen.. thanks
katie in montana on 4.14.2012
I made these last night and checked back on the website to make sure I had the recipe right(which I did). The flavor of these cookies is INCREDIBLE but they are VERY delicate and I realized there was no point in trying to put a fork crisscross in them. The dough was to sticky and the crisscross baked out. I’ve thought about trying them again sometime and tweeking the recipe-maybe less butter or maybe more flour. It’s a lot harder to tweek a baking recipe than a cooking recipe in my opinion which is why I”m a good cook but a lousy baker. I’m serving them today to our crew who will be sorting pairs off our calving pasture and I’m concerned they may be to delicate and crumble..might be a cookie more for a ladies brunch. I do have another peanutbutter cookie that is hardier and may go back to that one.
Maryanne on 4.5.2012
I made these earlier this week.. awesome dough.. and the cookies came out fantastic too, even though i forgot the egg! Didn’t notice much of a difference between them and regular peanut butter cookies though, but still loved them!
Lori R on 4.3.2012
Baking is give and take. Just because you try a new recipe and it doesn’t work out the way you envisioned is no reason to say things like “I have better things to do with that amount of time” or “A waste of my time, resources and my hard earned money.” A tad harsh, don’t you think? The blogger isn’t making any of us try something new so I feel we should at least be respectful when critiquing. It’s okay not to like it, but let’s try being constructive by adding suggestions or other ideas you think would tweak the recipe.
KSK on 4.3.2012
It took quite a bit of paitence for me to get the butter browned. I got the so called dough in the frig and kept it there overnight. I filled a cookie sheet with cookies which kinda mushed up when pushing down with the fork but i managed to complete. Then I put them in the oven and filled another cookie sheet to put in the oven when the first ones came out. When the first sheet was done I took them out to cool and put the second sheet in. After a few minutes of cooling I tried to loosen one the the cookies and it crumbled. I waited a few more minutes and tried again. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. My second batch of cookies were ready to come out before my first batch was off the cookie sheet. I tasted the cookies that crumbled and I decided they were not good enough to waste this amount of time. So the remainder of the cookie dough went in the trash along with the crumbled cookies. I did get a few whole cookies out of the whole thing but they were still very delicate and had to be handled gently. Baking cookies should be fun and easy. These cookies were neither. I have better things to do with that amount of time.
Margaret on 4.2.2012
I agree with Tess–I’m not sure if something got lost in the transfer, but there seems to be way too much fat in this recipe. I’m all for rich cookies, but when I mixed these up the butter wouldn’t even all incorporate into the dry ingredients, there was so much of it! After refrigerating overnight there was a thick film of fat on the top.
I scraped it off hoping to salvage the recipe (probably about 4 T. total), and the cookies were still a greasy mess. I think taste-wise they’re probably delicious, but if you try making these you can easily cut it down to 1 stick of butter! Remember you’re adding another big source of fat & flavor with the peanut butter.
Christine on 4.2.2012
See comment above.
SQUEEEEE…..I’m a wee bit sick…kept doing the “just one more” and these are very rich.
So, the pan worked, the cookies are round, cooking them to a golden brown makes them more pick-up-able, but after cooling, they all seem to be the same “softness” (vs. staying crispy on outside). They come off the pan easily; now I’m trying to figure out how to send them to college boy without ending up a crumble mess…they’re more delicate.
The batter was very manageable to roll by hand after sitting in stainless bowl for 20 minutes in the fridge. The batter is pretty normal…maybe a tiny bit softer than my usual recipe, but no worries.
of course…they’re very yummy!
Christine on 4.2.2012
Hey all!
I’ve had a browned-butter-brownie before and wanted to sink into the earth, so this recipe piqued my interest.
Tess….I noticed my butter reduced a bit in volume (or quite a bit..didn’t measure, but being a chemist, I notice these things) and am wondering if yours did enough reducing before being added to the recipe.
Well, the dough is in the fridge and I’m sure I’m taking the dough out a bit ahead of time to cook a batch! I want some sweets now! with milk! I’m going to put it directly on my aluminum pan, so maybe the surface tension will hold the rounds in shape vs running together. I will report back!
beetree on 4.1.2012
I made these tonight, and they are INCREDIBLE! I was impatient at first, and tried to eat one warm a few minutes out of the oven, and it fell apart. However, when I left them on the sheet to cool for 10-15 minutes before transfering, they firmed right up- even enough for me to stack and carry. I like these on the pale side- when they firm up they have the flavor of See’s peanut butter lollipops…mmm! This is definitely a keeper!
Tess on 4.1.2012
PLEASE NOTE: The ratio of cream to dry is entirely wrong. I saw this coming but choose to make the cookies anyway, assuming that the solidified browned butter would hold it all together after an all nighter in the frig. 1 c peant butter, 1 c butter, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp honey, 1 egg and 1/4 c milk is way too much liquid against 1 1/4 c flour. Not to mention the amount of leavening for such a scant amount of flour. All my ingredients are baked, cooled and sitting in a heap in the trash can. A waste of my time, resources and my hard earned money. Very disappointing.
Michelle Ellis on 3.31.2012
The cookies look delicious!! I was wondering what kind of cookie sheets are being used? I have seen them being used in other cookie recipes too.
Susan W on 3.31.2012
Forget the recipe…. those blue cannisters are phenomenal!
LOVE! I so want them. I would love to be able to see what’s inside
my cannisters without opening them.
Stephanie S on 3.31.2012
AMAZINGGG! With browned butter and sugar right off the bat, how could this recipe possibly go wrong? My mouth was watering from the moment the butter turned golden. This is not your normal peanut butter cookie. It was fun and easy to make. Sure, there were more steps then how most recipes are usually but it is honestly worth that extra mile. One thing to keep in mind is that they come out flaky around the edges and soft in the middle so they are kind of delicate. I’m not sure those were just how mine turned out, or that’s how they are supposed to. None the less it makes a great “starting of finals” snack to share with the roommates.
mary w alias military mom on 3.31.2012
Nothing better than PB cookies! Do you make Dog Cookies too? Have you published any home baked dog snacks?
Annie B on 3.31.2012
I made these this morning for my peanut butter cookie-loving daughter and she says they are the best she’s ever had!! I agree!
Susan in the Boonies on 3.31.2012
These sound really good!
Laurie {Simply Scratch} on 3.30.2012
Yes the recipe is correct
However the honey flavor isn’t overly pronounced so if you choose to eliminate the honey the cookies I bet would still be phenomenal.
Norine on 3.30.2012
Yes, what is the decision about the honey? 1/2 tsp hardly seems worthwhile :-).
Kim k on 3.30.2012
Can the poster check the honey measurement please, that is definitely more than 1/2 tsp. thanks!
JeanKNJ on 3.30.2012
Question regarding the picture of the Peanut Butter and honey, the recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon of honey and in the picture it looks like a lot more honey than that. Is the recipe correct? Thanks
Scentsy Gal on 3.30.2012
Oh! Some of my FAV cookies!!!! YUM!!!!
Sandi Pike Foundas on 3.30.2012
Oh. My. God. My mouth watered through every bit of this post. WONDERFUL photos… These cookies look AMAZING. But truthfully…. you had me at ‘peanutbutter’!
Yum….. xoxox ~Sandi
Jenee on 3.30.2012
I know what I’ll be making sunday afternoon! Have never thought of browning the butter. Thanks Ree!
Louise E. on 3.30.2012
I bought too much peanut butter when it was on sale, so I was planning to make some cookies to give away. (Well, some to keep and some to give away.) These cookies look delicious so I will definitely give this recipe a try.
NikkiB on 3.30.2012
Are these on the crunchy side or soft side of a cookie? looks yummy!
Laurie - Simply Scratch on 3.30.2012
Hmmm they are sort of both, soft, flaky with crispy edges
All Good in Mommyhood on 3.30.2012
Love peanut butter. Stomach is growling. If you don’t mind sticky hands make these peanut butter bon bons…oh nellie…
http://allgoodinmommyhood.blogspot.com/2010/10/weekend-indulgence-gut-bomb-bon-bons.html
CalebsMomma on 3.30.2012
These sound delicious. When i make regular peanut butter cookies I either roll the balls in sugar before using the fork or I dip the fork in sugar before pressing. Will either of these methods work instead of sprinkling sugar on afterwards.
Laurie - Simply Scratch on 3.30.2012
That sounds like a great idea
The Mrs @ Success Along the Weigh on 3.30.2012
Is it wrong I was to just slam my face in the bowl and eat it that way?
Heather on 3.30.2012
I’ll eat anything with “browned butter” and “peanut butter” in the title