Thick chewy peanut butter cookies with white chocolate chunks

These thick chewy peanut butter cookies are the perfect bakery-style giant peanut butter cookie, but with the added bonus of white chocolate chunks! This recipe for thick chewy peanut butter cookies with white chocolate chunks comes from the baking book All The Sweet Things by Renée Kohlman, which you can buy on Amazon. 

How to make thicker peanut butter cookies that are more chewy

This recipe makes thick, chewy peanut butter cookies with chunks of white chocolate that have a nice salty-sweet balance. You can finish them with flaky sea salt, if you have some, to up the salt factor in these. If you share them with friends or colleagues, these cookies will make you very popular!

This recipe differs from the classic peanut butter cookie recipe not only in the ingredients used, but also the ingredient ratios. Here's what you will notice is different with this peanut butter cookie recipe:

• use natural peanut butter, which we know from baking flourless peanut butter cookies that baking flourless peanut butter cookies with natural peanut butter actually leads to thicker cookies that spread less!
• use less butter and more peanut butter, which leads to less spread
• slightly more sugar (but not too much more), which may lead to more spread, but in this case doesn't because of the other changes in the recipe
• whole milk in the cookie dough will help dissolve the sugars and also help loosen the dough a little so that the cookies have an easier time rising as they bake, leading to a slightly more open crumb
• chopped nuts are added to the cookie dough, which would reduce cookie spread. Any time you add "chunks" to a dough, this will impede the melting/flow of the dough as it bakes, which helps bake tighter cookies
• slightly more flour in the cookie dough will also make these cookies thicker
• both baking powder and baking soda help these cookies rise up and spread less
• chill the dough
• scoop bigger portions of dough: for most cookies, I scoop 30 gram portions of dough, but for this recipe, we portion out 50 gram scoops of dough, which combined with chilling the dough, will slow the spread of the cookies

When you combine all these changes in the classic recipe, you end up with bakery-style peanut butter cookies that are thick and chewy, and perfect!

Tools to bake the best cookies

There are tools, equipment, and bakeware that I use when I make cookies. The list is simple but if you are going to make cookies on a semi-regular basis, you might want to consider investing in a few of these items to make your baking sessions easier and more successful!

• Cookie scoop: this style of cookie scoop, also known as a "disher" is the most reliable I've found (available on Amazon). They can handle firm doughs without breaking because the release mechanism is separate from the handle! This gives you a better, firm grip on the handle, without the risk of breaking the leaver.
• Baking sheets: I like to invest in large baking sheets, also known as half sheet pans, with the following dimensions: 13"x18". I like the Nordic Ware sheets (available on Amazon) and they come in a variety of sizes (quarter sheet, half sheet, big sheet). You can also find cheaper pans. Just make sure you opt for light Aluminum pans, not the pans with a darker finish because cookies on darker pans will brown/burn more quickly on the bottom!
• Electric hand mixer: most of us used to make cookies with a good old wooden spoon, but now I don't have the stamina, the arm strength, or the motivation, honestly. I have used an electric hand mixer from Braun (Multimix HM5100 available on Amazon) to make these cookies and it works well. I've also used the KitchenAid Artisan mixer. Both work!
• Large bowl with a rubber or silicone grip on the bottom: if you are going to make cookie dough with a hand mixer, invest in a GIANT 8 quart stainless bowl with a rubberized bottom so it is stable on the counter and this way, the bowl won't dance around as the mixer runs. This set from Amazon will do the trick. Or buy a stainless bowl without a rubberized grip and nest it in a damp towel to stabilize it while mixing. 
• Kitchen scale: I cannot stress enough how much easier it is to measure out ingredients by weight. If you are interested in making the switch to a digital scale, I like this OXO Good Grips kitchen scale available on Amazon. I use it all the time and it takes standard AAA batteries which you probably have on hand most of the time.
• Parchment paper to prevent sticking: I prefer to bake cookies on Aluminum pans lined with parchment paper. I have baked with Silpat and silicone baking mats in the past, but I much prefer baking with parchment. Silicone is insulating and this will have an impact on how long it takes to properly bake the cookies and this will reduce browning as well. If you like gooey, underbaked cookies, silicone mats like the Silpat are your best bet (available on Amazon). If you prefer chewy cookies, opt for parchment paper—I use the Kirkland brand roll available on Amazon.

Since this recipe does make quite a few cookies, if you wind up with too many cookies, chop them up into small pieces and freeze them for later so that you can make a batch of cookie ice cream!

This recipe for thick chewy peanut butter cookies with white chocolate chunks comes from the baking book All The Sweet Things by Renée Kohlman, which you can buy on Amazon.  I won this cookbook in a giveaway, and Touchwood Editions sent it to me. I chose to review the book on my blog. Thanks for supporting the authors that inspire me to create content for Kitchen Heals Soul. As always, please know that I wouldn’t work with a sponsor nor recommend a product if it wasn’t worth it. Be sure to visit Renée's blog sweetsugarbean.