Some people like peanut butter cookies for their flavor. Others for their extra protein intake, but you might be one of the many that favor their extra chewy texture.
Biting into a decadent and moist peanut butter cookie will satiate anyone’s sweet tooth. Fortunately, there are several methods you can employ to infuse that extra chewiness.
Methods like adding all-purpose flour, brown sugar, shortening, and baking powder can integrate more moisture into your cookies, resulting in a chewy cookie.
Stick around to learn more about how to make peanut butter cookies chewy.
What Makes Peanut Butter Cookies Chewy
Before I dive into the tips to create the ultimate chewy peanut butter cookie, you’ll want to know the science behind the texture.
Most peanut butter cookie recipes call for melted butter. This ingredient is composed of separated water and fat.
When you incorporate the all-purpose flour into the mixture, its proteins grab onto the water to create an elastic gluten composition.
Consequently, you’re left with a delicious chewy bite once baked. Simultaneously, the sugars and fats of the batter restrain gluten formation, so your cookies don’t become too tough.
10 Tips to Make Your Peanut Butter Cookies Chewy
You’re likely craving the chewiest peanut butter cookie bite right now. Well, here are a few tips on how to get it.
1 – Use Brown Sugar
Brown sugar is a hygroscopic ingredient. In other words, it can absorb more moisture in the dough than white granulated sugar.
Plus, brown sugar contains molasses, which gives it its brown color. That adds more moisture to your batter.
Meanwhile, if you add white sugar, it’ll melt faster. Your dough will then spread out more thinly, leaving it less chewy and crispier.
2 – Avoid Overbaking
Overbaking your cookies is the last thing you want to do to achieve a chewy texture. You’ll know you’ve overbaked your peanut butter cookies if they come out looking dry and crumbly.
The excess heat from the oven will evaporate all the remaining moisture out of your cookies. Fortunately, you don’t have to toss your overbaked cookies out.
Instead, place them in the microwave for 20 to 30 seconds with a glass of water. The added steam from the liquid will saturate the cookie. You’ll also get a warm cookie.
3 – Use Creamy Peanut Butter
While an all-natural peanut butter offers exceptional nutritional benefits, it won’t help you achieve the chewiest peanut butter.
It’ll only spread your peanut butter more thinly because of the added oils in it, leaving no extra volume for a chewy bite.
For this reason, I’d reach for the commercial creamy peanut butter with extra stabilizers that’ll hold your cookies’ shape. You can also opt for the crunchy variety, but it won’t be as chewy.
4 – Use All Purpose Flour
Using bleached, unsifted all-purpose flour is your best bet for getting a chewy peanut butter cookie.
Why? It all has to do with the ingredient’s protein content. Unlike other flour varieties, all-purpose options have a moderate protein amount.
Other choices have more protein, making your peanut butter cookies harder and less chewy. Building on that point, you also want to make sure you don’t add too much flour.
Otherwise, it’ll absorb the extra moisture out of the cookies, making them dry.
5 – Don’t Overmix the Batter
When you overmix the batter, you’re adding more air into it. The excess air will make it rise and flatten in the oven.
Remember, flatter cookies equal crispier texture. Plus, overmixing will also cause too much gluten development, creating a denser bite.
6 – Ensure Ingredients are Room Temperature
Keeping your ingredients at room temperature will ensure a smoother batter. The components will be able to blend more homogeneously together.
Combined room-temperature ingredients, particularly dairy ones, create an emulsion that traps air.
When in the oven, the trapped air rises and expands the peanut butter cookie’s thickness. Once baked, that velvety batter will translate into the desired chewy texture.
7 – Add Moisture-Rich Ingredients
Adding moist-rich ingredients like honey or molasses can make a world of difference to your peanut butter goods.
Be sure not to add more than a tablespoon of the ingredients. Otherwise, your peanut butter cookie batter could end up too runny, stretch, and become crispy rather than chewy.
8 – Use Baking Powder
Baking powder instead of baking soda will make your cookies chewy. The latter will make your peanut butter cookies prone to spreading because it’s less acidic.
Once they spread, they’ll become thinner and less moist.
9 – Use Vegetable Shortening
While butter is an ideal cookie-baking ingredient, vegetable shortening is a game-changer for chewier results.
Butter has fat, milk solids, and water. Subsequently, it can cause a steaming reaction when baking, potentially drying out the peanut butter cookies.
Meanwhile, vegetable shortening is pure fat. It won’t have the same effect while baking. Additionally, the ingredient melts at a higher temperature, giving the mixture more time to rise.
That will essentially maintain the cookie’s moisture.
Now, you might still prefer butter because of its added decadent taste. In this case, you can opt for butter-flavored shortening or split the ingredients at a one-to-one butter-to-shortening ratio.
10 – Decrease Baking Time
Taking out your peanut butter cookies just before the assigned baking time can reap chewier results.
You can eyeball the timing by monitoring the cookies. If the edges appear golden or crisp up, while the center is still soft, that would be a good time to cut the heat.
How to Keep Your Peanut Butter Cookies Chewy
You’ve baked your batch and eaten your share but can’t seem to finish the rest. Not to worry, you can easily store the rest while ensuring they remain just as chewy as your first bite.
1 – Avoid the Fridge
Whatever you do, keep your peanut butter cookies away from the fridge. The appliance can suck out all the moisture from the baked goods.
2 – Seal Them
By sealing them, that doesn’t mean placing them in a cookie jar with a loose lid and calling it a day. You have to keep them in an air-tight container, so the moisture doesn’t escape.
3 – Keep Them at Room Temperature
Since you can’t keep the peanut butter cookies in the fridge, you need to store them at room temperature. The maximum number of days they can stay out is around the three-day mark.
If you need to keep them after that, the freezer is your best bet. You can freeze them for up to six weeks.
4 – Add Bread
When placing the peanut butter cookies in a container, you can add a slice of white bread. Its moisture will keep your cookies from drying out.
Now, you’ll need to be cautious with this method because if the container has too much moisture, the bread could potentially mold.
Final Thoughts
There’s nothing like biting into the chewy, moist center of a flavorful peanut butter cookie.
By incorporating methods like adding brown sugar, cutting baking time, avoiding overmixing, and using room temperature ingredients, you’ll be sure to get the chewiest results.
The good news is that you can retain the moist texture through proper storage.
That includes keeping your baked goods in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days or less.
Sarah is the founder of Baking Kneads, LLC, a blog sharing guides, tips, and recipes for those learning how to bake. Growing up as the daughter of a baker, she spent much of her childhood learning the basics in a local bakery.