This recipe is guaranteed to make all of your peanut butter cookie dreams come true. Legit peanut butter flavor AND a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup! Baked to perfection in adorable mini muffin wrappers. You need these cookies for your holiday cookie tray or neighborhood cookie swap. Trust me.
These cookies are just beautiful and brighten up any cookie platter. The wrappers are full of color and keep the cookies soft once they have cooled. The recipe requires no chilling and the cookies will disappear in an instant! These cookies make the perfect holiday gift for a neighbor, or a beautiful addition to the cookie plate for Santa.
Making the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough:
You'll want to use your stand mixer for this one... all of that peanut butter and sugar can be a lot of work to mix and you want the fluffiness that is created by creaming your butter and sugar together. You will cream your butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Next you will add in the peanut butter, eggs and vanilla, and mix again. Finally, you will add in your dry ingredients, give the dough a quick mix, and you are ready to bake.
This dough doesn't require chilling before baking, but the cold won't hurt the dough either. You can cover and store the dough in your refrigerator for up to 3 days or you can form the dough into balls and freeze on a sheet pan for future baking.
Baking the Peanut Butter Cup Cookies:
You'll start by lining the mini muffin pans with mini cupcake wrappers of your choice. Next, you will use your #30 cookie scoop to get about 1.5 tablespoons of cookie dough. Roll the dough into a nice circle and dip the top of the dough in some sugar. You will place the dough, sugar side up, in your mini muffin liners.
Bake at 350° for exactly 9 minutes. While the cookies are baking, unwrap you Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. This is not something that you want to be doing once the cookies come out of the oven. Once you have taken the cookies out of the oven, gently press a peanut butter cup into the top of each cookie. Allow the cookies to cool in the pan until the cookie has set up. You can then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and leave to cool until the peanut butter cup has returned to a solid state.
These cookies make a perfect after school snack, holiday gift for a neighbor and are also a beautiful addition to a cookie tray to celebrate the holidays. The cookies travel well too if you are looking for a cookie that would survive in the mail. They are dangerously addictive and I hope that you love each and every one of them.
I used the Reese's Miniatures that also have Reese's Pieces in them for this recipe. This was initially an accident, but the added crunch of the Reese's Pieces inside the peanut butter cup was a welcomed surprise. All of my taste testers loved them and I'm sticking with it from now on.
If you are looking for other cookie recipes that are great for holiday baking, check out some of these Maple and Thyme recipes or visit our Dessert page.
Happy holidays,
Amanda
Other delicious cookie recipes
- Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
- The Best Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Dark Chocolate Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Sugar Cookies with Buttercream Icing
Recipe
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Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
Ingredients
For the Cookies
- 1 ½ cups (195 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ¾ cups (150 g) packed light brown sugar
- ¼ cup (50 g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup peanut butter non-natural peanut butter is recommended
- 1 large egg + 1 yolk, at room temperature
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
For the Top
- 36 Reese's Miniature Peanut Butter Cups, unwrapped I like the ones that also have Reese's Pieces in them...
- ⅛ cup granulated sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°. Line 36 mini muffin cups with paper liners.
- In a small mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix gently to combine.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer or using a handheld mixer, cream together the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Mix the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.Add the peanut butter, egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract. Mix on low until well combined, 1-2 minutes.
Add in the dry ingredients and mix until combined. - Using your cookie scoop or two spoons measure about 1.5 tablespoons of cookie dough. Roll the dough in your hands so that you have a nice round ball. Dip the top half of the cookie dough into the extra granulated sugar. Place with the sugar side up into the baking cups.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes. Remove from the oven and nestle a peanut butter cup into the top of each cookie. Allow to cool until the peanut butter cup is no longer melted. To speed up this process, you can transfer the cookies to the freezer for 15-20 minutes Transfer the cookies from the baking pans to a cooling rack or serving dish. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for 2-3 days.
Nutrition
KITCHEN TOOLS THAT I USED TO MAKE THIS RECIPE:
AFFILIATE DISCRETION:
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Maple and Thyme says
Thanks so much for the feedback Sara. Always good to know when things take longer for people. So helpful to the other bakers making the recipe. 🍪
Sara says
Awesome and flawless recipe! Although I did need to cook mine longer than 9 minutes. They were still completely raw dough at that point. I eye-balled them after that and probably ended up cooking them for an extra 5 or 6 minutes and they were perfect.
Maple and Thyme says
That’s so much for the feedback Sara. Always good to know when things take longer for people. So helpful to the other bakers making the recipe. 🍪