Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe (2024)

Posted: · Updated: · By Chrysa

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This Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe is fun to make and delicious to eat. Use pretzels, mini chocolate chips and M&Ms to create your own Rudolph cookies!

Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe (1)
Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe (2)

Ask any kid who their favorite reindeer is and chances are that they will answer “Rudolph!” Well, that’s a great choice and is an especially fun one for baking.

With a bright red M&M nose, this Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe is easy to identify as Santa’s lead reindeer.

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The homemade peanut butter cookie recipe we use for these Rudolph cookies is easy to whip together.

But, if you just want to do the fun part of decorating with your kids, you could start with a refrigerated cookie dough instead.

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Even little tots are able to help by placing the chocolate chip eyes and M&M noses in place to make these adorable reindeer cookies! For older kids they can help measure out ingredients and mix up the dough.

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If you plan to make a lot of Rudolph Christmas cookies, it’s helpful to get a bag of ALL red M&Ms (which you can get in bulk on Amazon) or you can use a bag of holiday M&Ms and pick out the half that are red instead of green.

Want to make a gluten-free version? Start with this almond flour peanut butter cookies recipe and then continue with our decorating instructions using gluten-free pretzels.

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Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup Peanut Butter
1/2 cup Butter
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
1 Egg
1 1/3 cup Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
48 Red M&M’s
96 Mini Chocolate Chips
Mini Twist Pretzels

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How to Make Rudolph Cookies

Break pretzels into pieces to use as antlers.Preheat oven to 350.

Cream together peanut butter, butter, sugar and brown sugar until smooth.

Add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.

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Slowly add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, beating until incorporated.

Roll into 1/2-3/4″ balls and place on cookie sheet several inches apart.

Sprinkle with sugar and gently make an indentation slightly off the center of each cookie.

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Bake 12-14 minutes.

Place an M&M in the indentation of each cookie.

Insert 2 mini chocolate chips (pointy side down) above the M&M to be the eyes.

Insert 2 pretzel pieces to be the antlers.

If the antlers won’t stick, place some chocolate chips in a sandwich bag and microwave 30 seconds and knead until soft. Clip the very tip of the corner and pipe onto cookie to act as glue.

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For some extra fun, team up these cookies with ourwith our with our Reindeer Hot Chocolate! Packaging the two together would make a really fun Christmas gift.

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For lots more fun reindeer themed fun, check out these tips for throwing the ultimate reindeer party!

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Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookies

Chrysa

This Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe is fun to make and delicious to eat. Use pretzels, mini chocolate chips and M&Ms to create your own Rudloph cookies!

4.57 from 37 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 14 minutes mins

Additional Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 54 minutes mins

Course Cookies, Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 48

Calories 83 kcal

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Break pretzels into pieces to use as antlers.

  • Preheat oven to 350.

  • Cream together peanut butter, butter, sugar and brown sugar until smooth.

  • Add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth.

  • Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.

  • Slowly add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, beating until incorporated.

  • Roll into 1/2-3/4″ balls and place on cookie sheet several inches apart.

  • Sprinkle with sugar and gently make an indentation slightly off the center of each cookie.

  • Bake 12-14 minutes.

  • Place an M&M in the indentation of each cookie.

  • Insert 2 mini chocolate chips (pointy side down) above the M&M to be the eyes.

  • Insert 2 pretzel pieces to be the antlers.

  • If the antlers won’t stick, place some chocolate chips in a sandwich bag and microwave 30 seconds and knead until soft. Clip the very tip of the corner and pipe onto cookie to act as glue.

Nutrition

Serving: 1CookieCalories: 83kcalCarbohydrates: 10gProtein: 1gFat: 4gSaturated Fat: 2gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.4gMonounsaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0.1gCholesterol: 9mgSodium: 80mgPotassium: 28mgFiber: 0.4gSugar: 6gVitamin A: 71IUVitamin C: 0.03mgCalcium: 9mgIron: 0.3mg

I am not a nutritionist. These values were calculated automatically with the Spoonacular Food API.

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Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why do they put fork marks in peanut butter cookies? ›

These early recipes do not explain why the advice is given to use a fork, though. The reason is that peanut butter cookie dough is dense, and unpressed, each cookie will not cook evenly. Using a fork to press the dough is a convenience of tool; bakers can also use a cookie shovel (spatula).

Why are my peanut butter cookies always hard? ›

If your peanut butter cookies are hard, you likely cooked them for too long. They should not be baked for more than 8 or 9 minutes.

Why do they use Criss Cross peanut butter cookies? ›

So it looks like that there are utilitarian reasons for the cross-hatching—to allow for even cooking—but it might have been passed along for nearly a hundred years for primarily aesthetic reasons, where the cross-hatching is more to identify the cookies as peanut butter ones, rather than to cook them well.

Why are my peanut butter cookies crumbling and falling apart? ›

If you overmix the dough, the cookies will be dry and crumbly. The best way to fix this is to add more liquid to the dough. This can be done by adding milk, water, or even melted butter. You may also need to add more flour to the dough if it is too wet.

What happens if you don't criss cross peanut butter cookies? ›

If you don't flatten the cookies first, then the fork does double duty – it performs both functions. One very subtle result of creating the pattern is that the little tips of dough bake up crisper than the rest of the cookie, giving you both a bit of additional texture and deeper taste where the dough is more baked.

Why do my peanut butter cookies taste weird? ›

Your other source of fat should be butter, not shortening. Butter will make your cookies taste buttery; shortening will make them taste suspiciously vacant, like Katy Perry's voice post-autotune. Yes, shortening yields chewier cookies than butter does, because butter contains water and shortening doesn't.

Should you refrigerate peanut butter cookie dough before baking? ›

Should you refrigerate peanut butter cookie dough before baking? Optional! This is a really soft dough, so it's easier to handle if you chill it a bit (plus it gives the flavors a chance to deepen). But if you put them in the oven right away, it will work just fine.

What are Elvis cookies? ›

The Elvis: Peanut Butter, Banana and Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies : Recipes : Cooking Channel Recipe | Cooking Channel.

Why do you smash peanut butter cookies? ›

It's been the “mark” of this classic treat for more than eighty years, and for good reason: by flattening this dense cookie dough, it ensures that each cookie bakes evenly. Our kitchen-tested recipe is a classic.

What if my peanut butter cookie dough is too dry? ›

Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.

Why are my peanut butter cookies so oily? ›

You baked your cookies and they came out an oily greasy mess. Urgh, what an awful feeling! If you've had this happen to you, odds are you made one of two mistakes: either you didn't allow the ingredients to thoroughly mix during the creaming process or you didn't allow the dough to rest enough before baking.

Does the fork trick work for cookies? ›

My trusted method for getting ripply, jagged-topped cookies has been simple–scoop the cookie dough with two forks, or as I like to call it, forking your dough. Take two forks and rough up the dough a little bit. Use the tines of both forks to gather up as much dough as you want in a bundle.

Why do people poke fork holes in sugar cookies? ›

So by poking the holes in, the cookie. will ensure that the cookie shape does not spread, which sugar cookies love to do.

Do you have to flatten peanut butter cookies with a fork? ›

Pressing a fork into these peanut butter cookies prior to baking helps flatten the cookies slightly, promoting oven spread. The fork marks also encourage the cookies to bake more evenly and brown evenly.

Why is shortbread pricked with a fork? ›

Remove the wrap if you've used it, then use a fork to prick ("dock") the dough all over; this allows any steam to escape, and prevents the shortbread from bubbling as it bakes. Prick the dough in a random pattern, or create a pretty design.

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