These are the softest, thickest, chewiest peanut butter cookies. Just don’t bake them too long!

Recipe by Catherine Pla

Makes 16-24 cookies

Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies with Chocolate Chips

11⁄4 c all-purpose flour
1⁄2 t baking soda
1⁄2 t baking powder
1⁄4 t kosher salt
1⁄2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1⁄2 c brown sugar
1⁄2 c granulated sugar
1⁄2 c creamy peanut butter
1 egg
11⁄2 t vanilla extract
3⁄4 c bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips
1⁄4 Demerara or turbinado sugar

Preheat the oven to 350. Line sheet pans with parchment.

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and stir to combine. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until light, but not fluffy, about 2 minutes. Don’t over mix. Add peanut butter, then egg and vanilla, beating well between additions and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low and add dry ingredients. Mix lightly until just combined. Add chocolate and incorporate, mixing a little as possible.

Scoop 1-2 tablespoon dough balls and roll them in the Demerara sugar. Evenly space dough balls on the sheet pans, I find about 8 cookies per 1⁄4 sheet pan works. Use a fork to gently press cookies, one way and then the other, the tines making a design. Don’t flatten too much.

Bake until golden brown at the edges but still a little soft in the middle, 8-9 minutes until the tops begin to crack. Cookies will look underbaked but will firm up as they cool. Transfer sheet pan to a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes, then remove cookies to a cooling rack to further cool.