Peanut Butter Monster Cookies
Pssst. I have a secret to tell you. You have to pinky-promise that you won’t tell anyone. Promise?
I don’t really like Halloween. I actually kind of dislike it. It’s my least favorite holiday.
Don’t get me wrong; I love fall, I love Thanksgiving, I love leaves, scarecrows, dried corn stalks, pumpkins, hay bales…but that’s where I draw the line. I don’t love costumes, costume parties, normal food disguised as disgusting food…(have you seen the spaghetti-hot dog worm thing on Pinterest? Gross.)
I’m not trying to be a Halloween-downer. (A Hallowdowner?) I appreciate that it’s our differences that make the world go ’round. I really did try to get into the spirit and made you a {Boo-tiful Ghost Cake.} But that ghost cake and this monster cookie? That’s about as Halloweenie as you’re going to get around here.
I’ve had a bag of miniature Reese’s Pieces candies in my pantry for almost a month now, just waiting for my Halloween inspiration to arrive. Since we’re now just six days away, I decided I should get on it. Since I also had an abundance of homemade peanut butter in my pantry, it seemed a big, soft peanut butter cookie was in order.
I love this particular peanut butter cookie recipe because it’s soft and chewy, and they’re huge! These cookies are nearly six inches in diameter, and every inch of them is covered in these adorable peanut butter candies. My three-year-old’s eyes lit up when she saw them, because that’s a lot of candy, and the cookie was bigger than her head. It was like she’d hit the dessert jackpot!
If you’re feeling a bit more sensible than I was, you could reduce the size of these cookies by about two-thirds. I used a large ice-cream scoop to shape these and got 18 cookies, but you could easily get 36 cookies out of this amount of dough. I did run out of candy for my last three cookies, so you might want to grab two bags if you need them all to look alike.
One more thing – because these are HUGE cookies, when you take them out of the oven, let them rest on the cookie sheet for at least five minutes. If you try to remove them before that, they’ll break. Give them five or ten minutes to set up before moving them to a wire rack.
I hope you enjoy these!
{So what do you think? Do you love Halloween or not? Let me know by leaving a comment below!}
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 and ¼ teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1 cup sugar
- ⅔ cup packed brown sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup rolled oats
- ½ cup peanut butter chips
- ½ cup chocolate chips
- Reese's Pieces mini candies, 1-2 bags
- In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer) cream together butter, peanut butter, sugar and brown sugar.
- Beat until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add vanilla, and beat to combine.
- Slowly add dry ingredients, and beat just until combined. Don't over beat at this stage.
- Stir in oats, peanut butter chips and chocolate chips.
- Refrigerate dough for 15 minutes, meanwhile preheating oven to 350 degrees (F).
- Prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Pour Reese's Pieces candies onto a plate or into a flat bowl.
- Using a large cookie scoop (about 3 Tablespoons) drop cookie dough into the bowl of candies. Gently use your hand to press the dough down into the cookies and flatten the dough into a disc, then transfer to cookie sheet.
- Bake, six at a time, for 12-15 minutes or until the edges are just beginning to darken.
- Allow to cool on cookie sheet for 5-10 minutes.
- If you skip this step, the cookies might break when you transfer them to a cooling rack.
- Allow to cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes before serving. Enjoy!
37 Comments
Liz Jay
this doesnt say how much sugar…
lemonsugar
It says a cup of white sugar and 2/3 cup packed brown sugar. Let me know if I’m missing something! 🙂
Lauren
I made these tonight and they spread SO much! I didn’t use a natural peanut butter, just plain old Peter Pan. Do you think that makes a difference? I
lemonsugar
The peanut butter shouldn’t matter. There are a couple of things that make cookies spread too much – if the batter is too warm when it goes in the oven, they’ll spread more quickly – keep the batter in the fridge between batches if spreading is a problem. Parchment inhibits spreading more than silpat mats, so you can try that – and you can also make sure your butter isn’t too warm/soft. I made six per cookie sheet, and they were large cookies, but they didn’t spread into each other. Hope this helps!
Angela
I love peanut butter and can’t wait to try these!!
Wendy
These were amazing! We have made them twice, once a full batch with large cookies, the second time a half batch with a smaller ice cream scoop for measuring. Wonderful! All of my guys LOVE them!
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Cricket
Your blog site is all covered in ads and I can’t see the recipe…help!! I really want to make these cookies
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Melanie Lippe Horan
my daughter came in while I was looking at this and began hoping that I was going to make these. Guess I will have to.
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Liz
So my son cannot have oats, what can I substitute in for them or could I just leave them out?
lemonsugar
You could just leave them out, but it will slightly affect the texture of the cookie (not in a bad way though) they just might spread a bit more in the oven so make sure your cookie dough is super cold!- you could use some coconut or maybe even quinoa flakes (which I haven’t tried yet but I heard they’re a good alternative.) Good luck!
Angela
Just made this tonight. I made mine with Crunchy Peanut Butter, Oats, and Chocolate chips. I didn’t roll them in Reeses after that because I felt they had ENOUGH sugar and chocolate for my family. I also used 1 cup Brown Sugar, 2/3 White sugar which is what I always do to get a SOFTER cookie – a trick my grandma taught me YEARS ago. I was SHOCKED (and I bake a LOT) about how wonderful these cookies turned out. They are PERFECTLY moist and sweet and soft ..just like a nice store bought. I made one batch on regular cookiesheet with no parchment paper – they spread out a little more but still tuned out delicious.. the rest of the batches I put on parchment and they were thicker and still SO SOFT. Delicious recipe…this recipe (with my tweeks) is going on my Pinterest board and my recipe save!
lemonsugar
Glad you liked them and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. 🙂
Angela
Of course! Very glad the recipe turned out – I’m one that makes the same recipes over and over because if it aint broke – don’t fix it ya know:) But a good example to try something new! I remember the monster cookies as a child in school and they always seemed HARD or CRUNCHY. bleh 🙂
D
bake temp??
lemonsugar
350!
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Heather
Oh my word these are AMAZING! My first batch turned out WAY too big so I made smaller dough balls as they don’t spread much when baking. SO good!
Becky
Where can I find mini Reece’s pieces? I have not seen them at our grocery stores. These sound delicious!
lemonsugar
I found them at Target. 🙂
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Kelli j
This is my old reliable cookie recipe for all things pot luck! Everyone loves these cookies even my Sil who is not a peanut butter chocolate fan!
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Tammy Currier Dowen
These look so yummy, can’t wait to try them!
Ps. I don’t like Halloween either! Love fall/harvest themes..no to Halloween!
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