Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies with Sea Salt
More peanut butter than flour, pressed with a fork so the dense dough has somewhere to spread.
- Serves
- 24
- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook
- 12 min
- Written
Method
-
Heat the oven to 350°F and line two sheet pans with parchment.
-
Beat the butter, peanut butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
-
Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, until smooth.
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Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl, then fold into the wet ingredients until just combined.
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Roll the dough into 1½-inch balls, roll each in granulated sugar, and space 2 inches apart on the sheet pans.
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Press each ball twice with a fork in a crosshatch, flattening it to about ½ inch.
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Bake until the edges are set and just turning gold but the centers still look soft, 10 to 12 minutes.
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Sprinkle with flaky salt while warm, then cool on the pan for 5 minutes before moving to a rack.
Notes
Peanut butter dough is stiffer than a standard butter cookie and won’t spread on its own, which is what the fork crosshatch is actually for — it’s not decoration, it’s the only thing flattening the cookie before the edges set. Pull them while the centers still look slightly underdone; they firm up completely as they cool, and a cookie that looks fully baked in the oven is overbaked by the time it hits the rack.
Use a shelf-stable, no-stir creamy peanut butter — natural peanut butter’s separated oil throws off the ratio and bakes up greasy. Chunky peanut butter works if you want texture in the crumb instead of just on top.