Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies with their classic flavor pairing of chocolate and peanut butter get a makeover with heart-shaped chocolate for Valentine’s Day. You can always replace the heart-shaped chocolate with chocolate kisses for an everyday treat that everyone will love!
Typical Peanut Butter Blossoms are soft peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses pressed in the middle. It’s so easy to give them a makeover with heart shaped chocolate and turn them into a fun Valentine’s Day treat like these heart-window stained glass cookies and these heart strawberry chocolate hand pies.
This peanut butter blossom cookie recipe is very simple and makes about 24 to 25 small cookies, perfect for sharing. If you want to elevate them further, use these brown butter peanut butter cookies as the base instead.
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Helpful tools
I typically use my trusty stand mixer to make the cookie dough. An electric hand mixer with a large mixing bowl will work just as well.
To divide the dough into equal portions, I use a small cookie scoop.
Ingredients and substitutions
As always, you’ll find the complete list of ingredients and quantities in the recipe card at the end of this post. Below are some notes and substitution tips:
- Unsalted butter – you can use salted butter, just omit the salt called for separately.
- Peanut butter – I used Skippy honey peanut butter since that’s what we always have in the pantry. But any store-bought brand should work, you can even use homemade peanut butter.
- Brown sugar – I typically stock light brown sugar for all my baking but dark brown sugar will work too. In a pinch, you can substitute granulated sugar.
- Egg
- Pure vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Leavening agents – baking soda and baking powder.
- Kosher salt – I use Morton brand. Use half as much if using table salt. Omit if using salted butter.
- Chocolate hearts – Dove usually releases chocolate hearts around Valentine’s Day. Godiva dark chocolate ganache hearts are available year round, those are delicious. Or simply use chocolate kisses.
How to make peanut butter blossoms cookies
The following instructions, step-by-step photos, and tips are here to help you visualize how to make the recipe. You can always skip straight to the printable recipe card at the end of this post.
Note: Before you get started — allow your refrigerated ingredients (butter and egg) to come to room temperature, and getting your ingredients in place will make for a smoother process.
Make the peanut butter cookie dough
Cream softened butter, peanut butter, and sugar together for 1 – 2 minutes until combined and creamy.
Add egg and vanilla, and beat for another 1 – 2 minutes until fluffy.
Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and stir in kosher salt in a separate bowl. Then add to the wet ingredient mixture. Stir until just incorporated.
Prep the cookie dough for baking
Use a cookie scoop to portion your peanut butter cookie dough and roll them into balls. This is the easiest and quickest way to get them all to be the same size. You could also use a scale if you have one. Or just eyeball the dough ball to be somewhere around 1¼” in size. Refrigerate the dough balls before baking.
Once the oven is preheated, place dough balls on a lined baking sheet about 2″ apart and bake for 10-11 minutes. Press a chocolate in the middle of the warm cookies while they are cooling on a wire rack to create the “blossom.”
More baker’s tips
- Make it festive – Roll the dough balls in sugar before baking for a sparkly look. You could also use colored sanding sugar for festive occasions and holidays.
- For more texture – Try using chunky peanut butter or fold some chopped roasted peanuts into the cookie dough.
- Try different candies – Try adding other candies on top like mini peanut butter cups, Rolo, chocolate truffles to make it even more decadent.
- Issue with chocolate melting – With the dark chocolate kisses and the Dove chocolate hearts, I didn’t have any issue with the candies melting into a puddle. However, if you want to experiment with filled chocolate candies, since the chocolate layer is thinner and softer, refrigerating or freezing the candies first will help keep them from melting too much when pressed into a hot cookie.
Storage
Keep these cookies in an airtight container on your countertop, you do not need to refrigerate them. They will stay fresh up to a week.
FAQs
Should I chill this cookie dough?
Chilling the cookie dough right after mixing and allowing it to firm up will make it easier to roll into balls. Further chilling of the dough before baking will prevent the cookies from spreading too much and rise a little taller.
However, this peanut butter blossom cookie dough shouldn’t be too sticky. I actually like to portion and roll the cookie dough into balls before refrigerating so that if I end up leaving the dough in the fridge for a few hours or overnight, I don’t have to wrestle with a hard dough in the bowl.
Cookie dough will last a few days in the refrigerator if you don’t want to bake them right away. But if you want to keep them for longer than just a few days, I recommend freezing the dough balls.
Can you freeze peanut butter blossom cookies?
This peanut butter blossom cookie dough freezes well. Portion the dough, roll into balls, lay the dough ball on a parchment lined baking sheet in one layer and freeze until solid. Then transfer the dough balls into a freezer bag and freeze for up to a year.
You can bake frozen cookie dough straight from the freezer without thawing. You will need to increase the baking time by 2 – 3 minutes.
You can freeze the already baked cookies, but you must wrap them well so they don’t absorb any freezer smell. Since these bake up so quickly even from frozen, I prefer freezing the unbaked cookie dough and baking them fresh whenever the needs arise.
More peanut butter treats
- Peanut Butter Pumpkin Cookies
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Peanut Butter Brownies
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
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📖 Recipe card
Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies (with heart chocolate)
Ingredients
- 4 oz unsalted butter (room temperature, 113 g)
- ½ cup creamy peanut butter (130 g)
- ¾ cup light brown sugar (lightly packed, 135 g)
- 1 large egg (room temperature)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ¼ cup flour (166 g)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 25 chocolate hearts
Instructions
- Cream together softened butter, peanut butter, and brown sugar in the stand mixer bowl with the paddle attachment until combined and creamy, about 1 – 2 minutes.
- Add egg, vanilla extract and continue to beat until light and fluffy, another 1 – 2 minutes.
- In another mixing bowl, stir together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour flour mixture into the stand mixer bowl. Stir until incorporated.
- Use a medium cookie scoop to scoop the cookie dough from the bowl, take a spatula and level off any excess cookie dough. Roll the dough into a ball with your hands. Place dough ball on a parchment-lined small baking sheet. This should yield 24 to 25 dough balls. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Take some cookie dough out of the fridge and place them on another parchment-lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 – 11 minutes. Bake one tray at a time in the middle of the oven. Keep the remaining cookie dough in the refrigerator.
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool while you unwrap the chocolate. Gently press a chocolate heart in the middle of each cookie while it is still warm. Allow cookies to cool completely and the bottom of the chocolates to harden and stick to the cookies before moving them from the baking sheet.
Notes
- Chilling the cookie dough before baking will reduce spreading.
- If you don’t want to bake the cookies right away, the dough will last about 3 days in the fridge. Longer than that, you should freeze the dough. Frozen dough will last up to a year.
- To freeze the dough, be sure to roll them into balls first. You can bake them straight from frozen, just increase baking time by about 2 minutes.
- Refrigerating or freezing the candies will prevent them from melting when pressed into a hot cookie especially if you want to experiment with softer filled chocolate varieties.
Nutrition
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This recipe made a soft flavorful cookie, the tip for freezing hearts first was great t
Thanks, Trang. These look wonderful and the recipe sounds much better than some others. Can’t wait to make them.
Thanks Linda, I hope you love them!
Just gorgeous. Chocolate and peanut butter truly are a match made in heaven
Thanks Marie!
Trang, these are so cute! I make the version with little kisses for the holidays, but these heart-shaped chocolates make them perfect for Valentine’s day too. 🙂
Thank you Marcelle! That’s exactly where I got the idea for these heart version, just switch out the kisses 🙂