What Happens If You Add Too Much Peanut Butter To Your Cookies - Tasting Table (2024)

ByStephanie Friedman/

Peanut butter cookies are a crowd-pleaser for peanut butter lovers, so you may want to add in as much of the spread you love as possible. Peanut butter adds a lot of value to baked goods — it provides a salty, nutty flavor, a light golden color, and a nice dose of sweetness from the sugar. It also doesn't skimp on the fat content. A 100-gram serving has a whopping 51.4 grams of fat, which can helpcreate chewiness and can makepeanut butter a more nutritious substitute for butter in baked goods.

It's easy to assume that you should pack your recipe full of as much of the spread as possible to create peak flavor and chewiness, but nailing down the ratio of peanut butter to the other ingredients is crucial for your cookies to come out with the right consistency. A 100-gram serving of smooth, salt-free peanut butter has 3.56 grams of starch. This may not sound like a lot, but it is enough that it can affect the quality of your cookies –adding too much peanut butter can make them dry, hard, and crumbly.

Too much peanut butter leads to dry cookies

What Happens If You Add Too Much Peanut Butter To Your Cookies - Tasting Table (2)

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The protein in peanut butter may also be to blame — it typically adds structure to baked goods but can also retain water, leading to a dry consistency. If you want to nail the perfect ratio of ingredients for maximum peanut flavor but a soft cookie texture, try using no more than 1cup of peanut butter for every 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1/4 cup of butter. You'll get an ideal balance of saturated fat, unsaturated fat, and gluten.

Depending on what type of peanut butter you use, you may need to add an extra step to ensure it goes in your dough with the proper texture. Natural peanut butter is completely fine to bake with, but it's crucial to stir it first.If you toss it in while the liquid and solids are still separated, your cookies may turn out too oily or too dry.Also, go for a completely creamy spread. While there is a time and place for chunky peanut butter, it may not be the best choice in peanut butter cookiessince it can add too much crunch. But whether you opt for natural or regular peanut butter, make sure to use a light hand when including it in your cookie dough.

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What Happens If You Add Too Much Peanut Butter To Your Cookies - Tasting Table (2024)

FAQs

What Happens If You Add Too Much Peanut Butter To Your Cookies - Tasting Table? ›

A 100-gram serving of smooth, salt-free peanut butter has 3.56 grams of starch. This may not sound like a lot, but it is enough that it can affect the quality of your cookies – adding too much peanut butter can make them dry, hard, and crumbly.

What happens if you add too much butter to cookies? ›

Too much butter makes cookies turn out just as you'd expect: very buttery. This batch of cookies was cakey in the middle, but also airy throughout, with crispy edges. They were yellow and slightly puffy in the middle, and brown and super thin around the perimeter.

How does butter affect the taste of cookies? ›

Butter gives flavor, tenderness and flaky layers to baked goods. It can also bring a bit of structure and rise. For instance, a chocolate chip cookie dough incorporates butter and sugar to incorporate air into the final result.

How do you counteract too much peanut butter? ›

"Eating one spoonful of peanut butter isn't going to send you into cardiovascular disarray, but consistent overeating of peanut butter could lead to negative health effects." A way to counteract is to pair your peanut butter with a food that's rich in omega-3, like a spoonful of chia seeds.

Can you have too much peanut butter? ›

Make sure to moderate your portions to avoid unwanted weight gain. While most of the fat in peanut butter is relatively healthy, peanuts also contain some saturated fat, which can lead to heart problems when consumed in excess over time.

What happens if you use too much butter in baking? ›

Too Much or Too Soft of Butter

If the butter yields too easily to pressure and appears melted and oily, it will produce a silky batter that rises too soon and collapses. Your cake will have big air pockets and an uneven texture.

Does more butter make cookies softer? ›

Also, underbaking them by a minute or 2 will help them retain a dense, chewy bite, explains Jenny McCoy, pastry baking arts chef-instructor at the Institute for Culinary Education in New York. Adding more moisture to your dough in the form of extra butter, egg yolks, or brown sugar will make your cookies even softer.

Do cookies taste better with butter or oil? ›

The spongy texture and moist flavor that oil creates can be a boon to certain recipes. Not to mention oil is cheaper and easier to work with. Butter will always provide superior flavor and that melt-in-your-mouth texture. In many recipes, combining the two gives the best of both worlds.

Why do my cookies always taste weird? ›

Baking soda helps cookies spread outward and upward while cooking. Adding too little can cause flat, lumpy cookies. Adding too much can lend a bitter taste to the cookies.

What makes a cookie chewy? ›

Double Your Yolks Most cookie recipes call for at least one egg. You can try omitting the white of each egg, which tends to dry out when baked, and replacing it with an additional yolk. Plus, egg yolks have more fat than egg whites, which helps to keep your cookies moist and chewy.

What happens if you put too much peanut butter in cookies? ›

Too much peanut butter leads to dry cookies

Depending on what type of peanut butter you use, you may need to add an extra step to ensure it goes in your dough with the proper texture.

How do you change the taste of peanut butter? ›

Sweetener: I always add a little bit of maple syrup or honey when making peanut butter. I don't like sweet nut butter, but I love the flavor a teaspoon or so adds. Oil: This is optional, but if your peanut butter is too thick, add a teaspoon or two of light-flavored oil (like avocado or peanut oil).

Why are my peanut butter cookies dry and crumbly? ›

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.

Is 10 tablespoons of peanut butter too much? ›

It is OK to eat peanut butter every day, but in moderation. Do not eat more than 2 tablespoons, approximately 32 grams, a day. This protein-packed spread is made by blending roasted peanuts into a thick paste and contains various nutrients that promote good health.

How many scoops of peanut butter is too much? ›

For most people, this means sticking to 1–2 tablespoons (16–32 grams) per day. Visually, 1 tablespoon (16 grams) is about the size of your thumb, while 2 (32 grams) is about the size of a golf ball. Opt for peanut butter that contains no added sugar and has a simple ingredient list, such as peanuts and salt.

Is it bad to eat peanut butter before bed? ›

Peanut butter has many nutritional benefits. Eating a small amount of peanut butter as part of a healthy snack before bed may help improve sleep quality and prevent overeating and weight gain the following day. Peanut butter is a nutrient-dense, high-calorie food containing vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber.

How do you fix cookies that spread too much? ›

If this happens, put the dough into the refrigerator until it is well chilled, usually about 1 to 2 hours. Another possible fix is to add some additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough is slightly stiffer and doesn't spread. 2. Butter or margarine is too soft.

Does melted butter cause flat cookies? ›

Adjust the butter temperature: If your cookies spread too much and turn out flat, it could be due to using butter that is too soft or melted. To fix this, refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes to firm up the butter.

What happens if you churn butter too much? ›

Why care about when to stop churning? If churning ceases too soon, much fat is lost to the buttermilk. If over-churned, the butter will contain too much buttermilk and be very difficult to wash clean.

Why did my cookies come out puffy? ›

A spread with less fat, diet "margarines" or spreads in tubs contain have too much water. The water creates steam, causing the cookies to puff. Low protein flours, such as cake flour, absorb less water, leaving excess water to create steam, which causes the cookies to puff.

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