This Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe is fun to make and delicious to eat. Use pretzels, mini chocolate chips and M&Ms to create your own Rudolph cookies!
Ask any kid who their favorite reindeer is and chances are that they will answer “Rudolph!” Well, that’s a great choice and is an especially fun one for baking.
With a bright red M&M nose, this Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe is easy to identify as Santa’s lead reindeer.
The homemade peanut butter cookie recipe we use for these Rudolph cookies is easy to whip together.
But, if you just want to do the fun part of decorating with your kids, you could start with a refrigerated cookie dough instead.
Even little tots are able to help by placing the chocolate chip eyes and M&M noses in place to make these adorable reindeer cookies! For older kids they can help measure out ingredients and mix up the dough.
If you plan to make a lot of Rudolph Christmas cookies, it’s helpful to get a bag of ALL red M&Ms (which you can get in bulk on Amazon) or you can use a bag of holiday M&Ms and pick out the half that are red instead of green.
Want to make a gluten-free version? Start with this almond flour peanut butter cookies recipe and then continue with our decorating instructions using gluten-free pretzels.
Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe
INGREDIENTS 1/2 cup Peanut Butter 1/2 cup Butter 1/2 cup Sugar 1/2 cup Brown Sugar 1 tsp Vanilla 1 Egg 1 1/3 cup Flour 1 tsp Baking Soda 1/2 tsp Salt 48 Red M&M’s 96 Mini Chocolate Chips Mini Twist Pretzels
Roll into 1/2-3/4″ balls and place on cookie sheet several inches apart.
Sprinkle with sugar and gently make an indentation slightly off the center of each cookie.
Bake 12-14 minutes.
Place an M&M in the indentation of each cookie.
Insert 2 mini chocolate chips (pointy side down) above the M&M to be the eyes.
Insert 2 pretzel pieces to be the antlers.
If the antlers won’t stick, place some chocolate chips in a sandwich bag and microwave 30 seconds and knead until soft. Clip the very tip of the corner and pipe onto cookie to act as glue.
For some extra fun, team up these cookies with ourwith our with our Reindeer Hot Chocolate! Packaging the two together would make a really fun Christmas gift.
For lots more fun reindeer themed fun, check out these tips for throwing the ultimate reindeer party!
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Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookies
Chrysa
This Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe is fun to make and delicious to eat. Use pretzels, mini chocolate chips and M&Ms to create your own Rudloph cookies!
Cream together peanut butter, butter, sugar and brown sugar until smooth.
Add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth.
Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.
Slowly add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, beating until incorporated.
Roll into 1/2-3/4″ balls and place on cookie sheet several inches apart.
Sprinkle with sugar and gently make an indentation slightly off the center of each cookie.
Bake 12-14 minutes.
Place an M&M in the indentation of each cookie.
Insert 2 mini chocolate chips (pointy side down) above the M&M to be the eyes.
Insert 2 pretzel pieces to be the antlers.
If the antlers won’t stick, place some chocolate chips in a sandwich bag and microwave 30 seconds and knead until soft. Clip the very tip of the corner and pipe onto cookie to act as glue.
I am not a nutritionist. These values were calculated automatically with the Spoonacular Food API.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
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The baking company shared that the reason has to do with the consistency of the dough. Because peanut butter cookie dough is dense, using a fork helps flatten it into the ideal shape and thickness, allowing it to bake evenly.
So it looks like that there are utilitarian reasons for the cross-hatching—to allow for even cooking—but it might have been passed along for nearly a hundred years for primarily aesthetic reasons, where the cross-hatching is more to identify the cookies as peanut butter ones, rather than to cook them well.
Finally, your peanut butter cookies might be dry and crumbly if you used a natural peanut butter that doesn't have any added oil. The dough should be thick and soft for peanut butter cookies.
If you don't flatten the cookies first, then the fork does double duty – it performs both functions. One very subtle result of creating the pattern is that the little tips of dough bake up crisper than the rest of the cookie, giving you both a bit of additional texture and deeper taste where the dough is more baked.
If you're wanting to use natural (no sugar added) peanut butter, the cookies will be less sweet and they will likely spread out more. Using natural peanut butter will change the structure and texture of the cookies. Why are my cookies dry and crumbly? This is most likely a classic case of using too much flour.
The most common mistake with peanut butter cookies is using the wrong type of peanut butter. The BEST peanut butter for today's cookies is a processed creamy peanut butter, preferably Jif or Skippy.
“When chilled cookies bake, the butter stays in a solid form longer, slowing the spread,” says Dawn. “30 to 60 minutes in the refrigerator does wonders, and you can bake the cookies right from the fridge.” Not only will chilling help the fats firm up and the flour hydrate, but it also helps the flavors develop.
Use a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Coating your baking sheet with nonstick spray or butter creates an overly greasy foundation, causing the cookies to spread. I always recommend a silicone baking mat because they grip onto the bottom of your cookie dough, preventing the cookies from spreading too much.
Chill your cookie dough! The dough is extremely soft due to the creamy peanut butter, eggs, and butter and if it's not cold going into the oven, the cookies will spread all over your baking sheet. I chilled this cookie dough for 24 hours and my cookies were soft, thick perfection.
You baked your cookies and they came out an oily greasy mess. Urgh, what an awful feeling! If you've had this happen to you, odds are you made one of two mistakes: either you didn't allow the ingredients to thoroughly mix during the creaming process or you didn't allow the dough to rest enough before baking.
For starters, chilling prevents cookies from spreading out too quickly once they're in the oven. If you use a higher fat butter (like Kerrygold), chilling your dough is absolutely essential. Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool.
Peanut butter: Creamy peanut butter is ideal for this recipe because crunchy peanut butter creates an overly crumbly cookie. You can use processed peanut butter such as Jif or Skippy, or natural-style peanut butter.
We prefer natural peanut butter here, so you can dial in the sugar and salt amounts precisely, and smooth peanut butter over crunchy to better control the cookies' fat and moisture levels. Letting the cookie dough rest ensures the flour is fully hydrated, resulting in crisper edges and chewier middles.
If you find that the dough is too dry (without the fat) then simply hold back some of the flour and add it near the end of mixing when you add the fat/butter If this helps to hold your baked cookies together, fine. If not then add a few more minutes of mixing.
Reasons why peanut butter cookies are dry and crumbly:
You cooked them a wee bit too long. Peanut butter cookies can be extremely deceiving. They don't always look cooked when, indeed, they are fully cooked. They won't get brown around the edges.
If you overmix the dough, the cookies will be dry and crumbly. The best way to fix this is to add more liquid to the dough. This can be done by adding milk, water, or even melted butter. You may also need to add more flour to the dough if it is too wet.
The most obvious and easiest fix is to add more liquid. Very slowly, teaspoon by teaspoon, add a liquid that you've already included to your dough. Mix after each teaspoon—you don't want to over-saturate it and risk gooey dough. Don't overmix, because this might lead to the problem you're trying to fix!
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