Description
Peanut butter monster cookies with a Reese’s peanut butter cup inside!!
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (94g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cup (200g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (125g) creamy peanut butter (not natural style)
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups (170g) quick oats*
- 1 and 1/4 cups mini or regular size M&Ms
- 18 Reese’s miniature peanut butter cups, unwrapped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. (Always recommended for cookies.) Set aside.
- Toss the flour, salt, and baking soda together in a large bowl. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter and brown sugar together until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the egg, then the peanut butter until combined. Finally, whisk in the vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or silicone spatula. The dough will be very soft and slick. Fold in the oats and the M&Ms. Allow the cookie dough to sit for 15 minutes—the oats will absorb some moisture, making the dough easier to work with.
- You can use the photos above as visuals for this step. Take 1 Tablespoon of dough and slightly flatten out on the prepared baking sheet. Stick a peanut butter cup on top, as shown above. Top the peanut butter cup with 1.5 Tablespoons of cookie dough and seal down the sides so that the peanut butter cup is securely stuffed inside. You can pick it up and roll into a smooth ball if needed. Slightly flatten down the top as best you can (it can’t be totally flat because of the peanut butter cup inside). Repeat with the rest of the dough and peanut butter cups.
- Bake the cookies for 12-13 minutes. The cookies will look very soft. They will continue to bake on the cookie sheet. Remove from the oven and lightly press down on each cookie to slightly flatten (if they didn’t spread much in the oven). Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: Cookies stay soft and fresh for 7 days at room temperature. Baked cookies can be frozen up to 3 months. You can freeze cookie dough balls by assembling as directed. Then chill in the refrigerator until firm and ready to pick up (you’re doing this because the cookie dough is so sticky). Once firm, freeze dough balls in ziplock bags. Bake as directed for 1-2 extra minutes, do not thaw. Read my tips and tricks on how to freeze cookie dough.
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- Oats: I do not recommend using old-fashioned style oats (aka whole oats) in this cookie recipe. They are the large-cut oats. You need quick oats, which are more finely ground (and smaller) whole oats. I often only buy old-fashioned (whole oats) from the store. So for this recipe, I simply pulse whole oats in a food processor a few times to cut them down to “quick oat” size.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.