Today I am excited to welcome the fabulous Cate of the food blog, Chez CateyLou! She is sharing her recipe and tips to make the most adorable peanut butter reindeer cookies around. They will be the talk of your next cookie exchange.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year….cookie season! I really can’t get enough cookies around Christmas, so I am so excited to be guest posting on Twin Stripe and sharing a cookie recipe with you. There have been a lot of cookie recipes on Chez CateyLou lately, but I saved my favorite one to share with you today. These Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies are the cutest cookies I have ever made! Look at those little faces – aren’t they precious? And as an added bonus, they taste amazing too.
So on to the building blocks of these cookies. The key to making these cookies is to have all of your decorating ingredients lined up and ready to go: mini chocolate chips for the eyes, red M&M’s for the nose, and broken pretzel pieces for the antlers. First, you mix up a simple peanut butter cookie dough. Then you roll the dough into one inch balls and bake them. I like to use a mini ice cream scoop to measure out the dough. This way, all the reindeer will be the same size. (On Skippy, On Reeses, On Planters and Jif…) When the cookies come out of the oven, quickly (and carefully! the cookie sheet is hot!) start making the reindeer. Start with the nose – press an M&M into the middle of the cookie. If your cookies aren’t flat enough, you can press in a bit to spread the cookie out so that it is flat and round. Then put two mini chocolate chips on for eyes. And finally, put the pretzels in for the antlers. I only put 10 – 12 cookies on a sheet at a time so that I can decorate all the faces while the cookies are still hot. Once the cookies start to cool, you won’t be able to press the decorations into the cookie. You can definitely fit more dough balls on the sheet, but resist the temptation!
These cookies will be the hit of any holiday party and will steal the show on a Christmas cookie platter. They are going to become a new holiday staple in my household.
Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies (Recipe from Ladies’ Home Journal)
Yield: about 48 cookies
Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
48 large red M&M candies
96 mini semisweet chocolate chips
Pretzels, broken into 96 1-inch pieces
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, beat together butter, peanut butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg and vanilla extract and mix until combined. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls, and place at least 1 inch apart on cookie sheet. Bake only 10 – 12 cookies at a time. Refrigerate the bowl of dough in between batches.
Bake for 7 – 9 minutes, until the cookies are just set. Immediately place one M&M in the center of each cookie for a nose (press down a bit if your cookies aren’t flat enough), 2 mini chocolate chips for the eyes, and 2 pretzel pieces at the top for antlers. Carefully transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.