Peanut Butter Cookies

These craggy rounds deliver all the comfort of eating a spoonful of peanut butter straight out of the jar — but with the creamy-candy richness of peanut butter chips in each bite. (If you’re a crunchy peanut butter person, you can throw in whole salted nuts, too.) Because of their low proportion of flour, these little disks develop fudgy centers inside lightly crisp edges. There are countless varieties of peanut butter in markets and all yield different cookie results. These use natural peanut butter, which is just peanuts blended with salt, so they taste especially peanutty.

Ingredients

½
cup/65 grams all-purpose flour
½
teaspoon baking powder
¾
teaspoon fine sea salt
½
cup/113 grams unsalted butter, softened
½
cup/108 grams granulated sugar
½
packed cup/93 grams brown sugar
1
cup/263 grams natural salted peanut butter (see Tip), at room temperature
1
large egg
2
teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1
cup/165 grams peanut butter chips
½
cup/74 grams lightly salted roasted peanuts (optional)

Preparation

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Whisk flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. In a large bowl, using a wooden spoon or spatula, smash and mix butter and both sugars together until smooth and creamy. Add peanut butter and stir until incorporated. Add egg and vanilla, and stir until well combined. Add flour all at once and fold gently until dry bits disappear, then fold in the peanut butter chips and peanuts, if using, until evenly dispersed.
Using a small cookie scoop or a measuring tablespoon, drop rounds of dough on a prepared sheet, spacing 1½ inches apart. Bake until just dry on top and set along the edges, 10 to 11 minutes. Do not overbake. Scoop and drop dough onto the second sheet while the first bakes, then slide into the oven when the first comes out.
Place the baking sheets on racks to cool completely. The cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 2 months.