Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Like a dream come true for my peanut butter + chocolate-loving heart.
Texture: Thick, chewy, chunky, and soft.
Ease: SO easy! This is a great recipe for beginner bakers and seasoned bakers alike.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: This recipe is one of my all-time favorite cookies, and I’m sure any PB lovers out there will feel the same!!
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Obsessed with chocolate + peanut butter? Giant Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies are made for you!
These cookies contain an obscene amount of peanut butter and the best mix-ins you could ask for: chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and Reese’s Pieces.
Their large size, soft and chewy texture, and mouthwatering appearance make these cookies look like they came out of a bakery display case.
They’re slightly crispy at the edges, soft and chewy throughout, with oozing bits of chocolate and PB in each bite. Heaven!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Giant Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies
What Type of Peanut Butter for Giant Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies?
I typically use a conventional creamy PB here, like Skippy. Natural peanut butter works great here, too, and will actually impart a stronger PB flavor – just be sure to stir it very well before using, so there are no oily pockets or dry bits. If using natural peanut butter, I like Kirkland Organic.
How to Avoid Dry Cookies
Be sure to measure your ingredients correctly, particularly the flour. Too much flour will create cakey, dry, dense, or tough cookies that don’t spread.
Measuring accurately is one of the best ways to improve your baking. Use a digital kitchen scale for best results (and fewer dishes!). If you don’t have one, use the spoon and level method.
What Type of Baking Sheet is Best?
I highly recommend using an aluminum half-sheet pan lined with parchment paper for baking cookies.
Never use dark-colored pans to bake cookies, as they tend to overly brown or even burn the bottoms of the cookies. Check out my experiments with baking pans in my Best (and WORST) Baking Pans post here.
How to Shape Giant Peanut Butter Cookies
To shape Giant Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies, roll the dough into 1/4-cup size balls using a 1/4-cup (aka 4-tablespoon) cookie scoop, then flatten slightly before baking (to encourage spread).
The result is a cookie as big as your hand with the perfect thickness!
Can I Make These Giant Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies Smaller?
Sure! If you’d like to make regular-sized cookies instead, roll the dough into 2-tablespoon-sized balls using a medium-sized cookie scoop and bake for about 10 to 12 minutes.
Do I Need to Chill This Cookie Dough?
No, you don’t have to. Baking straight away will yield delicious cookies.
If you have time, however, I do recommend chilling the Giant Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookie dough overnight, covered well in the fridge. Here’s why:
- Chilling cookie dough is very similar to marinating meat – things just get so much better!
- The texture becomes chewier and thicker, and the flavor intensifies.
- Learn more about Why You Should Chill Your Cookie Dough here.
How to Store Giant Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies
Store cooled cookies at room temperature inside an airtight container for three days. Store with a tortilla to keep the cookies soft longer.
How to Make Reese’s Pieces Cookies Ahead of Time
To freeze this cookie dough, portion and flatten slightly, place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and freeze until solid. Transfer the solid cookie dough discs to an airtight container and freeze for up to 6 weeks. Get my tips on how to freeze cookie dough, and how to bake from frozen, here.
More Delicious Cookie Recipes:
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Ingredients
- 3 cups (381 grams) all-purpose flour*,
measured correctly - 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1/2 cup (135 grams) creamy peanut butter**
- 1 cup (200 grams) packed light brown sugar
- 3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (170 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 cup (170 grams) peanut butter chips
- 1 cup (170 grams) Reese’s Pieces
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, peanut butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar on medium-high speed until very well combined, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla and beat until combined.
- On low speed, gradually add the flour mixture and beat until just combined. Add the chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and Reese’s Pieces and beat until just combined. You may need to do this by hand with a spatula if your mixer isn’t strong enough.
- Roll the dough into 1/4-cup balls and place on the prepared baking sheets. Flatten the dough balls into 1/2-inch thick disks.
- Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the cookies are light golden brown at the edges. Place the baking sheets on cooling racks and let cool completely. Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Notes
This post was originally published in 2013 and has been updated with additional recipe tips. Photos by Jess Larson.
Hi! Can you explain why using bleached flour is better? And why using King Arthur we should reduce the flour by 2 Tbsp? I use King Arthur I bleached flour and I feel like I’m commuting double errors! Can’t wait to try these cookies!
I made a typo, I meant I usually use King Arthur UNbleached flour for all my cookie baking. I’d love your feedback on the flour differences. Thank you!
Hi Colleen! That’s a great question — bleached flour tends to create softer, thicker, more tender cookies because it absorbs liquid differently and doesn’t develop as much gluten. King Arthur’s flour is a bit higher in protein than Gold Medal (what Tessa & our team uses), so it can make cookies turn out drier or denser if you don’t adjust. That’s why we suggest reducing it by about 2 tablespoons.
If you want to see the difference in action, Tessa shared comparison photos in the Sprinkle of Science sections of our Snickerdoodles and PB&J Cookie posts. Can’t wait for you to try these, they’re a fall must-bake in my house! 🙂
Thanks so much for your response! Yes, I only use King Arthur UNbleached AP flour (the bag with the red color on it) in my house. I never even thought there would be a difference! I bake many of Tessa’s recipes, so would I reduce by 2 Tbsp of flour with all her cookie recipes? Now I’m scratching my head. The cookies always come out amazing, and I never thought twice about it. But I do not use bleached flour at all in my cooking. Very interesting info! Thanks so much!
Happy to hear your cookies always turn out amazing! If you’ve love the results, I’d keep making the recipes as-is. No need to change what’s working! The 2-tablespoon tip is a general guideline for bakers who find their cookies turning out dry or dense. Humidity and kitchen climate can play a big role, too — I’m in Michigan, and while my cookies bake up perfectly as written, sometimes they need extra flour if the humidity is extremely high. So it can be completely different where you live, too! If you’re curious, you could try two half-batches side by side and compare. It’s a fun little baking experiment!
Thank you so much ❤️
Hi I don’t have a mixer, will it be okay if I just use a spatula to mix them all together?
Unfortunately, that’s not a technique we’d recommend for this recipe as it won’t properly cream the butter and sugar and the resulting texture would be different. You can learn more about the importance of creaming butter and sugar here.
These cookies are awesome. Making them again tonight for a holiday party. Thanks for the great recipe.
🙂
Planning on making you say…. I only have chocolate milk, almond milk and half and half. Would any of those work in place of milk?
Hi Ashley! I’m sorry but we haven’t tried any substitutions such as these, so we can’t say for sure! I definitely wouldn’t recommend using chocolate milk though. Let us know how it goes if you give one of the other substitutes a try 🙂
Can the cookies be made smaller (1 or 1.5 TB scoop) and if so, what would the ecommended baking time be? TY!
Hi Didi! We’ve tested making the dough balls into 2-tablespoon sized balls and baking them for about 10-12 minutes and they turned out perfectly. Feel free to adjust from there if you’d prefer even smaller cookies, though I do highly recommend making the giant ones at least once… they’re absolutely delicious! 🙂
I just discovered your website and purchased your book. I love how you explain the science behind the recipes.
Q: I want to make all kinds of giant cookies like the Reese one. Can I use this recipe as a base and improvise different ingredients like macadamia nut/ white chocolate etc..
Thank you for the inspiration
Hi Norbert! We are so glad to hear that you’re enjoying Tessa’s wonderful recipes! Yes, feel free to replace the mix-ins in this recipe (or any cookie recipe!) with any other mix-in of your choice – just be sure to keep the volume/weight of alternate chocolate chips, nuts, etc the same written in the original recipe. Happy baking 🙂
These cookies were delightful, my whole family loved them!
Can I omit the tablespoon of milk or substitute it with something else?
Hi Dalena! We haven’t tried omitting or substituting the milk in this recipe, but they should still work okay if you omit it, or replace it with a dairy-free milk, half and half, or water. The milk in this recipe assists in softening the texture of the cookies, and helps the cookies brown, so replacing or omitting the milk will alter the end result slightly. Let us know how it goes! 🙂