My family loves my soft peanut butter cookies and my Nutella peanut butter cookies, so I decided to create a chocolate version of this fave. That was easy to do by just substituting some of the flour with cocoa powder. Nice and soft and full of chocolate peanut buttery flavor, yum!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
I love this dough. It’s such an easy recipe and comes together nicely. I haven’t substituted butter for the shortening, so if you decide to do that I’m afraid I can’t offer up any experienced advice. I have used both regular shortening and butter flavored shortening, both with great results.
You’ll also love my Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies. With a subtle hint of cinnamon and chocolate combined, you’ll be in cookie heaven!
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Ingredients for this recipe
- 1/2 cup shortening or butter flavored shortening (you can substitute butter but the texture may be a little different)
- 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
- 3 tbsp milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup cocoa
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
Helpful kitchen tools
How to Make Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Combine shortening, peanut butter, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat with electric mixer at medium speed until well blended.
- Add egg. Beat just until blended.
- Combine flour, cocoa, salt and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix just until blended.
- Drop by heaping tablespoons (using a cookie scoop works great) 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet.
- Flatten slightly in crisscross pattern with tines of fork.
- Bake for 7 to 8 minutes, or until set and just beginning to brown. DO NOT OVERBAKE.
- Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet. Remove cookies to racks to cool completely.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup shortening or butter flavored shortening
- 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
- 3 tbsp milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup cocoa
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Combine shortening, peanut butter, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat with electric mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add egg. Beat just until blended.
- Combine flour, cocoa, salt and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix just until blended.
- Drop by heaping tablespoonsful (using a cookie scoop works great) 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet. Flatten slightly in crisscross pattern with tines of fork.
- Bake for 7 to 8 minutes, or until set and just beginning to brown. DO NOT OVERBAKE. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet. Remove cookies to racks to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
This post originally appeared here on Apr 6, 2011.
Amanda Formaro
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Christina says
Do these freeze ok?
Amanda Formaro says
Yes! Just like peanut butter cookies :)
Jen says
Good and super soft!! but VERY chocolatey, I didnt eally taste the peanut butter, though my kids said they did! And my husband ate 3 right off the cooling rack ;)
I think maybe if we added in some reeses pieces or peanut butter chips ot would have made the ratio of peanut butter to chocolate just a little bit better :) thanks for the recipe!!!
Amanda Formaro says
Glad you enjoyed them Jen!
Ca says
Can I use butter? I don’t buy shortening anymore.
Amanda Formaro says
yes
Alice says
Do you need to use shortening ,can I justuse butter?
Amanda Formaro says
butter will work
Rebecca Mangrum says
These sound amazing and I can’t wait to try them. I was wondering if I could substitute self-rising flour and leave out the salt and baking soda of course.
Amanda Formaro says
I have not tried it, but here’s some information I found:
There are some cases in which you can substitute the same amount of self-rising flour for the amount of all-purpose flour called for in a recipe. If a recipe calls for ½ teaspoon to 1 teaspoon of baking powder per 1 cup of all-purpose flour, it’s safe to swap in self-rising flour.
Colleen says
The cookies had a great texture and were not dry. However, the flavor was just ok.
Amanda Formaro says
The cocoa does mellow the flavor a little.
Lynn says
These cookies are very good. I followed another commenter’s suggestion of fluffing the flour and cocoa before scooping and leveling. I made the recipe exactly as written, baking for 7 minutes. They turned out perfectly. Thanks so much for a great and easy recipe.
Amanda Formaro says
Hooray! So glad you loved them , thanks Lynn!
Janna says
These cookies look like just what I’ve been looking for to serve as an after school snack!
Janice says
I just made my first batch of these and they are awesome! I used Tenderflake lard because I had no shortening, I did the scoop and sweep with the flour and cocoa and baked for exactly 8 mins. Perfection!
Amanda Formaro says
Yay, so glad you loved them, thanks Janice!
Cindi says
Very very good! Baked 7 minutes and perfect! So important to fluff any dry ingredients then scoop and level otherwise dry cookie. I added 1/4 cup caramel morsels and 1/4cup chocolate chip. I also used the butter shortening.
Amanda Formaro says
Love the addition of the caramel morsels, great idea!
Donna says
Hi, I just made these and they were cooled and they seemed to be dry? Can you tell me what I did wrong?
Are they supposed to be like that? Help
Amanda Formaro says
Hi Donna. If they dried out, I would guess one of two things. Either they baked too long, they need to be slightly underbaked. Or too much cocoa was used. When measuring the cocoa, use the same scoop and sweep type method that you do with flour. Do not pack the cocoa into the measuring cup. Hope that helps!
Terri says
This looks like a good one, but I would skip the shortening. I never like adding oil or butter or shortening to any recipe, so I do my best to avoid it.