Loaded Peanut Butter Cookies
So, oatmeal cookies. They’re a pretty polarizing food. In my experience, people either love them or they absolutely hate them. I’m somewhat in the middle. I admit that when oatmeal cookies are bad, they are truly wretched.
But oh, when they are good…
I think that the biggest potential downfall of an oatmeal cookies comes down to the texture. If the balance between the oats and the cookie’s moisture isn’t found, then the whole thing ends up giving someone the feeling that they’re chewing dried cud, very quickly, and within seconds they’re reaching for a glass of milk or water to wash the whole thing down.
Flavor is also key. A lot of typical and ‘gourmet’ oatmeal cookies are made with purple raisins. I think this is a huge mistake. The flavor of purple raisins is very pungent, and in this circumstance, not in a good way. In my opinion, it doesn’t complement the flavor of rolled oats very well. Other dried fruits work much better; dried cherries, cranberries, or even golden raisins are all better than purple.
Most recently, I’ve found that another huge boost to oatmeal cookies (both in terms of preserving moisture and enhancing flavor) is adding peanut butter. This isn’t entirely surprising; there are very few things that peanut butter cannot enhance or make better. But I’ll be honest and admit that until I tried today’s recipe I had never thought of putting peanut butter in oatmeal cookies.
But I’ll tell you: whoever did think of it first was really onto something.
So are these peanut butter cookies, or oatmeal cookies? I truly think they’re both. The oats provide the dominant texture, but the chunky peanut butter also adds texture from the nuts AND added moisture from its fats. It’s a really really good combination that would be a good enough cookie on all its own, even if it weren’t for the other add-ins.
The title of this recipe really does say it all. On top of the oats and chunky peanut butter, it also contains semisweet chocolate chips, toffee bits, and mini-peanut butter cups that I diced up into halves to make for better dispersement. The result is a bite that has so many different things going on, but has a really hearty, and yet also (somehow) richness to it that is really delicious.
Like with the vast majority of cookie recipes on this blog, I strongly recommend letting the dough rest in the fridge for a while to let it get nice and chilled before baking. That way, you’ll get rounded cookies with decent lift rather than flat pancakes. The taste won’t be that different, but one is prettier to look at than the other. Your choice.
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Loaded Peanut Butter Cookies
Recipe Adapted from Food Network Magazine
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
- 1 cup chunky peanut butter (Don’t use natural pb here, it won’t come out the same)
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark, it doesn’t matter)
- 1/3 cup white granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- 2/3 cup toffee bits
- 1/2 cup mini peanut butter cups, chopped
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Spread the oats on a large baking sheet and bake until lightly toasted, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool. Line 2 separate baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, combine the toasted rolled oats, chocolate chips, toffee bits and mini peanut butter cups. Stir with a fork and set aside.
Combine the peanut butter and butter in a large bowl and beat with a mixer on medium speed. Add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda and beat until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs and vanilla, then stir in the dry ingredients, just until combined.
Scoop out 12 equal mounds of dough (about 1/3 cup each), arranging the dough balls in a resealable plastic container you’ve lined with parchment paper or foil.
Refrigerate for at least two hours, but preferably overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two large sheet pans with parchment paper.
Arrange cookie dough balls about 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Lightly flatten with your fingers.
Bake, switching the pans halfway through, until the edges of the cookies are set but still soft, 20 to 24 minutes. If any cookies are misshapen, use a spatula to press the edges back into a round shape. Let the cookies cool 10 minutes on the pans, then transfer to a rack to cool completely (the cookies will hold together best when fully cooled).
Note: no one oven is the same, & different baking sheets bake cookies differently. Keeping this in mind, I will ALWAYS test bake one cookie before baking entire sheets of the whole batch, just to get a good idea of how long they should be in the oven and if I need to adjust the way I’ve cut, rolled them out, etc. I highly recommend that you do the same.)
Sharing at Fiesta Friday #451.
Omg peanut butter cookies are my fav! These look delicious! Love the oatmeals pb flavour combo 😍
Thank you Linda–if you love pb cookies, you’ll really like these 😉
One of my longtime favorite cookie recipes is my Grandmother Edith’s Kansas cookies. They have oats, corn flakes, coconut and nuts in it and you can add chocolate chips, too. I’ll have to try this recipe of yours and also try adding PB to her recipe.
Thanks, your grandmother’s cookies sound delicious!
Loaded with luscious!
Thanks Dorothy! 😀