Rating

Peanut butter pie is one of my favorite desserts. I absolutely love it any time of year. When I made the key lime pie cookies for Father’s Day, it dawned on me that I could use the same cookie base and the sky was the limit as far as toppings and fillings go. Hence, the peanut butter pie cookie was born! I can’t wait to experiment even more and bring you endless pie-inspired cookies!

I also just want to add that my mom said these were some of the best cookies she’s ever had – and if you know her, you know she is my favorite harsh cookie critic 😉 So needless to say – this recipe is a winner!

A few recipe notes:

Under most circumstances I feel pretty strongly about making homemade whipped cream. It tastes so much better and really is a nice touch to a homemade dessert. However, when I was playing in the kitchen this day the only thing I had on hand was a tub of Cool Whip in my freezer. If you are anti-Cool Whip, don’t come for me!! I would usually agree, but by the time you get to the whipped cream topping these cookies are so good you really can’t mess them up.
As I noted in the Key Lime Pie Cookies recipe, these ingredient increments make approximately 18 large cookies or 3 dozen smaller cookies. Feel free to cut this recipe in half if you need fewer cookies, however I recommend you make the base recipe in the original size, and follow my instructions for freezing cookies here. Freeze half of the base dough and use it to make my Key Lime Pie cookies next week. I promise you won’t be sorry – and it’s the same base cookie! Work smarter, not harder.
I used crushed vanilla wafers in these cookies, but graham crackers would be just as good!

Let’s get to baking!

Ingredients

Cookie base:

-1 cup butter

-1/2 cup brown sugar

-1/2 cup granulated sugar

-2 eggs

-1 tsp vanilla

-2.5 cups all-purpose flour

-2 cups of vanilla wafers, crushed (measure 2 cups, and then crush)

-1/2 tsp baking soda

-1 tsp baking powder

-1/2 tsp salt

-1/3 cup vanilla wafers, crushed

Peanut Butter Pie Filling

– 8 oz cream cheese

-1/2 cup peanut butter

-1/2 cup powdered sugar

-Cool Whip

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Combine your dry ingredients – flour, crushed cookies, soda, powder, salt, in a bowl and set aside
Cream butter and sugars in a different bowl until light and fluffy.
Add in eggs and vanilla extract
Once combined, add in your dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
Your dough should be soft and a little sticky. Scoop your dough into whichever size you’d like and then roll in the extra cookie crumbs.
After rolling in cookie crumbs, gently press the bottom of a tablespoon into the center to create a little dip in the cookie.
Bake for 8 minutes, remove from oven, then use a measuring cup (size will depend on size of cookie scoops, I used a 1/4 cup scoop for my 3 oz cookies) to press a larger dip in the partially baked cookies.
Return to oven for 2-3 minutes. After baking, cookies should no longer be glossy in the center, but they should not be browning around the edges.
Let cookies cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transferring them to parchment paper or a wire rack to cool completely.

Peanut Butter Pie Filling

Cream together peanut butter and cream cheese
Add powdered sugar, mix on high speed until combined, light, and fluffy

Assemble

Once cookie bases are complete cooled, dollop the peanut butter pie filling into the dip in each of the cookies. Divide filling evenly amongst cookies (I used 2 scoops of filling for each cookie using my #40 cookie scoop). Top cookies with Cool Whip and crushed Reese’e pieces for a little something extra!

Enjoy!

Since I don’t want to flood this post with pictures that disrupt the flow of reading the instructions, I’ve put a few below.

If you give these a try be sure to let me know what you think!