This high altitude recipe for classic peanut butter cookies makes the best cookies that are so soft, thick, and chewy, with a perfect salty sweet balance. The dough is also incredibly easy to make, with just a bowl and spoon, instead of a mixer. And since the dough doesn’t need to be chilled for very long, you’ll be enjoying freshly baked cookies in just a few hours!
You might also like these recipes for peanut butter and jelly cookies, 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies, and flourless chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
No Mixer Needed. Today’s recipe uses melted butter, so you can make the dough with just a bowl and whisk.
Versatile Recipe. You can make these cookies plain, with chocolate chips, dipped in chocolate or sandwiched with dark chocolate ganache. And for a peanut butter blossom cookie, add a Hershey’s kiss on top, or a square of your favorite chocolate bar. I love to sprinkle mine with flaky finishing salt, which looks so pretty and tastes delicious. If you’re looking for a flourless/gf version, try my flourless peanut butter cookie recipe!
High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
- Unsalted Butter. Adds flavor, moisture and richness.
- Creamy Peanut Butter. I’ve used many kinds of creamy peanut butter when making cookies. If you use an all-natural peanut butter that needs the oil stirred in, you should increase the flour in this recipe by a couple of tablespoons.
- Brown Sugar + Granulated Sugar. Sweetness.
- Egg + Extra Egg Yolk. Provides structure to the cookies, binding the dough together so it doesn’t crumble.
- Vanilla Extract + Cinnamon. Flavor.
- All-Purpose Flour. Thickens and strengthens the cookie dough.
- Corn Starch. Tenderizes the dough for a soft, chewy cookie.
- Baking Soda. Leavens the cookies so they puff up when they bake.
- Coarse Kosher Salt. Balances the sweetness and enhances the flavor of the peanut butter.
- Flaky Finishing Salt. Adds the perfect salty finish on top of the cookies.
Instructions
- In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then remove from the heat. In a bowl, whisk together the hot melted butter with the peanut butter until smooth.
- Whisk in both the sugars and the vanilla extract, then whisk in the egg and egg yolk until well combined.
- Separately, whisk together the flour, corn starch, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and stir the dough until all the flour is incorporated.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 1/2 hours.
- Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Use a medium cookie scoop (1 1/2 – 2 tbsp capacity) with a release lever to scoop 28 balls of dough or a large cookie scoop (2 1/2 – 3 tbsp capacity) to scoop 16 balls of dough. Use the tines of a fork to slightly flatten each dough ball in a classic criss-cross pattern.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
- Place the dough balls 3 inches apart on the baking sheet and bake on the center oven rack for 8-9 minutes for medium cookies, or 10-11 minutes for large cookies.
- Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely. If you like, lightly sprinkle the tops of the cookies with cinnamon sugar and flaky salt.
Recipe Variations
Peanut Butter Cookies with Chocolate
You can add chocolate chips directly to the cookie dough, or press a square of chocolate on top of the cookies when they’re warm from the oven. These cookies are also wonderful sprinkled with flaky finishing salt.
Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies with Ganache
- To make the chocolate ganache, finely chop 4 ounces of chocolate, scrape it into a bowl, and set aside. Warm 4 ounces of cream in a saucepan until hot.
- Pour the hot cream over the chocolate, and stir until smooth. Let cool for several minutes until it’s thickened slightly.
- Turn half the cookies over so the bottom is facing up, and spoon the ganache onto the cookies.
- Place the rest of the cookies on top of the ganache to make a sandwich.
- Refrigerate for several minutes to firm up the ganache.
Chocolate Dipped Peanut Butter Cookies
After cooling the cookies completely, dip them in melted chocolate (milk, semi sweet or dark). Set on a parchment lined baking sheet and let the chocolate harden again before storing the cookies.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
If your cookies are too dry, then you’ve either over-baked them, or added too much flour. If you’re using the measuring cup to scoop your flour, then you’re likely packing too much flour into the scoop, resulting in a dry, dense cookie dough. Be sure to use the spoon and sweep method to measure your flour.
Another reason is that most recipes call for creaming together the butter, peanut butter and sugar. When peanut butter is whipped, it tends to get dry and crumbly. So in my recipe, I melt the butter with the peanut butter, and then gently stir in all the ingredients. This keeps the cookies so soft, moist and chewy!
You sure can! Natural peanut butter that needs to be stirred is runnier and less stable than other peanut butters that have added oils. When I bake cookies with natural peanut butter, I add a couple extra tablespoons of flour to make up for the thinner consistency.
Corn starch lowers the protein content of the flour, which tenderizes the dough for soft, chewy cookies.
I use Maldon sea salt.
Cookies will stay soft and chewy, stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3-5 days, or frozen for 3-6 months.
Yes, I used to add 1/2 cup of oats (finely ground) in place of some of the flour, but in 2026, I updated the recipe to omit the oats for better results. Most of the photos in this recipe post are of the version that included the oats, but the updated photo in the recipe card is for the updated version without oats. I like the look of this version better, as the crisscross pattern from the fork pressed on top is more distinct, while the cookies are just as soft as ever.
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Best High Altitude Peanut Butter Cookies
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Large Cookie Scoop with Release Lever (2 1/2 – 3 tbsp capacity)
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ¾ cup creamy peanut butter
- ½ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk (save the extra white for another use)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
- In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then remove from the heat. In a bowl, whisk together the hot melted butter with the peanut butter until smooth.
- Whisk in both the sugars and the vanilla extract, then whisk in the egg and egg yolk until well combined.
- Separately, whisk together the flour, corn starch, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and stir the dough until all the flour is incorporated.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 1/2 hours.
- Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Use a medium cookie scoop (1 1/2 – 2 tbsp capacity) with a release lever to scoop 28 balls of dough or a large cookie scoop (2 1/2 – 3 tbsp capacity) to scoop 16 balls of dough. Use the tines of a fork to slightly flatten each dough ball in a classic criss-cross pattern.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
- Place the dough balls 3 inches apart on the baking sheet and bake on the center oven rack for 8-9 minutes for medium cookies, or 10-11 minutes for large cookies.
- Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely. If you like, lightly sprinkle the tops of the cookies with cinnamon sugar and flaky salt.
Notes
- Cookies will stay soft and chewy, stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3-5 days, or frozen for 3-6 months.
- Peanut butter that’s not labeled “all-natural” is usually best for baking, as it’s more stable. If using a drippy all-natural peanut butter (which contains only peanuts and salt, with no other oils), you should increase the flour by a couple of tablespoons to keep the cookies from spreading too much.
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What is this witch craft!! I thought I’d never have fluffy delicious cookies again (high altitude baking 😭) and a quick google search I found them. I didn’t add cornstarch because I didn’t have it. Still turned out amazing. Wtf. So good. Thanks so much!!! Current elevation is 7500
Gina, I’m so happy you love them! 🙂
I loved these cookies!!! I have had a hard time making cookies since I moved to Colorado from Texas and this recipe made me feel like I can still bake. The texture and flavor are delicious!! Thank you for your website with high-altitude baking recipes. I’m so thankful to have found you:)
Love your Best High Altitude Choc Chip Cookies! Now mixing up a batch of these luscious looking Best High Altitude Peanut Butter Cookies. Can’t thank you enough for all the high altitude help! 🤗
Have you ever made this without chopping up the oats (I.e., keeping the oats whole)? I completely forgot to do that and am wondering/hoping it won’t change much?
It works either way.
Thank you!! I absolutely love your site and the fact that you are based in CO!
My cookies were a little dry. Love d the cinnamon that was added in the ingredients. I added sugar on top of the cookies before I baked them
If they were a little dry, it’s possible you measured too much flour, or your eggs were on the small side. Be sure to measure your flour correctly by first fluffing it up in the canister, lightly spooning it into the measuring cup, then sweeping it off the top to level it.
These are excellent. Very good. Substitute the butter for the same amount of brown butter. Just be careful if you brown the butter, you’ll lose about 1/4 – 1/3 in evaporation, you can even it out by adding the lost water once browned or add extra butter before browning.
I’m so glad you loved them! I’ve actually never lost that much volume when browning butter – for 1/2 cup (8 tbsp), I usually get about 1 tbsp evaporation, so that’s 1/8 the amount.
If I want to make these in advance of a party, would you recommend freezing the dough and then bring up to room temp to bake the cookies just before the party, or would you bake the cookies and then freeze them and defrost for the day before the party in the fridge or at room temp?
I prefer to bake cookies and then freeze them when making in advance.