Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

November 24, 2018 by Beth Pierce 37 Comments

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Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies are delectable, soft, melt in your mouth treasures. The recipe is quick and easy to follow with options for splitting the batch and adding chopped peanuts or chocolate chips. These along with Small Batch Almond Joy Cookies and Buttery Pecan Snowball Cookies are some of my absolute favorite cookies.

Cookie season is here and with it brings all kinds of treasured memories and delectable treats. I remember my eldest daughter and I made about forty dozen cookies for the neighbors one year for Christmas. It was a really long day but we had a lot of fun and we shared a lot of laughs. I bet you too have some great memories around baking cookies and it is never too late make some new memories.

How to make Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Then set it aside for just a bit. Cream the butter, brown sugar and white sugar. Blend in the peanut butter. Add the vanilla and egg and mix in just until incorporated.

Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture in three parts scraping down the bowl and beaters. Stir in the oats and the chopped peanuts. Using a cookie scoop, load the peanut butter oatmeal cookie dough onto baking sheets that are covered with silicone mats or parchment paper. Bake until lightly browned. These peanut butter cookies crumble easily when hot so they need to cool on the cookie sheets for a couple of minutes before being moved to cookie cooling racks.

Why do cookies spread too much?

Your ingredients are not the right temperature – you need to bring your ingredients to room temperature. Your butter should be a little soft and easy to leave an indent in when you lightly press on it. Likewise, in the summertime, you have to be careful not to let the butter soften too much. Make sure you bring any eggs out of the fridge ahead of time. It takes about 30 minutes for eggs to come to room temperature.

Your baking powder and baking soda are no longer any good – make sure your baking powder and baking soda are still good. For baking powder, place 1 teaspoon baking powder in a small bowl or measuring cup and add 1/3 cup hot tap water. For baking soda, place 1/4 teaspoon baking soda in a small bowl or measuring cup and add 2 teaspoons vinegar. If the mixture bubbles then you are good to go. If not, replace these products before using them in any baking recipe.

You did not measure your ingredients properly – always measure ingredients properly. Spoon your flour into your measuring cups and level off evenly with the smooth end of a table knife. Make sure to level off your sugar, baking soda and baking powder as well.

You did not preheat the oven and you did not bake in the middle of the oven – always preheat your oven and try to bake the cookies on the middle rack. For proper spreading they need the heat to be able to circulate around them as evenly as possible.

You did not read your recipe instructions thoroughly – recipe writers usually include recommended chilling times if necessary or other helpful hints to make sure your cookies bake off without a hitch.

You did not do a test run – you worked hard on that Oatmeal Peanut Butter cookie dough so dish out one to two dough scoops and place them in the oven. Keep an eye on them and establish an optimum cooking time. If the cookies spread too fast, refrigerate the dough for at least another thirty minutes and try again.

Helpful hints for Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies:

Cream your butter and sugar for a few minutes before adding the peanut butter.
When adding the flour to the butter mixture turn the mixer to stir or better yet grab a spoon and hand stir it. Also, stir in your oats and peanuts.
You can use salted or unsalted peanuts but I personally like the salted ones better.
Preheat the oven and use silicone baking mats or parchment paper
If available use a cookie scoop so they are of uniform size.
Gently press the cookie dough down with palm of your hand or the bottom side of a flat glass.
Do not over bake these cookies.
Gently remove the oatmeal peanut butter cookies to cookie cooling racks.

Other peanut butter recipes you will love!