The Best Peanut Butter Cookies

These peanut butter cookies are the unfussy, foolproof classic, the kind your grandmother made and the kind that disappear from a cookie jar by the dozen. The technique is straightforward: cream butter with brown sugar and granulated sugar in equal parts, beat in eggs and a full cup of peanut butter, then add the dry ingredients and roll into balls.

The signature crisscross fork press isn’t just decoration. The dough doesn’t spread much during baking, so without that flattening, you’d get round little balls instead of proper cookies. Dipping the fork in flour between presses prevents sticking and keeps the marks crisp.

The equal sugar ratio gives the cookies the right balance: brown sugar handles chewiness and depth, white sugar handles the crisp edge. The recipe makes a generous five dozen, perfect for cookie tins, kids’ lunches, or freezing in scoops for fresh-baked cookies on demand.

Pro Tips

• Use room-temperature butter, not melted. Properly softened butter creams with the sugar and traps air for a tender cookie; melted butter gives flat, greasy results.
• Beat the butter and sugars until truly pale and fluffy, at least 3 minutes. This builds the structure that keeps cookies from spreading too thin.
• Press lightly with the fork, just enough to flatten the ball. Heavy pressure thins the cookie too much and the edges burn before the center sets.
• Pull cookies when the edges are just barely browned. They look slightly underdone but firm up perfectly as they cool.

Variations

• Use natural peanut butter (well stirred) for a less sweet, more nut-forward flavor; results may spread slightly less.
• Add ½ cup of chocolate chips to the dough for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.
• Press a chocolate kiss into the center of each cookie immediately after baking for the classic blossom-style version.