Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies – Peanut butter cookies with chocolate covered pretzels, cinnamon red hots and chocolate chips light up any holiday occasion!
SAVE THESE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES TO YOUR FAVORITE PINTEREST BOARD!
The cookie recipe makes about 73 (6 dozen), but I only made about 1/3 of the batch into reindeer because I ran out of chocolate covered pretzels.
Take a look at these great cookies from my fellow bloggers:
Melted Snowman Cookies from My Imperfect Kitchen
Chocolate Peppermint Biscotti from Back for Seconds
Christmas Wreath Cookies from The First Year
Hot Chocolate Cookie Cups from Butter with a Side of Bread
Mint Candy Cane Cookies from Valya’s Taste of Home
How to Make Reindeer Cookies
Like I said, this recipe starts with a simple peanut butter cookie dough.
After you mixed the cookie dough, you’re going to shape the dough into 1-inch balls, pinching the bottom to give the reindeer his chin.
Place onto cookie sheet about 2 inches apart and flatten slightly with the palm of your hand so they look like this:
It’s important to do this step right away. If the cookie dough isn’t still warm and gooey, the pretzels, chocolate chips and red hots won’t stick to the cookie.
I have a few friends who strongly dislike cinnamon red hots. If this is the case, you could certainly use a red M&M in its place, his little reindeer nose will just be a little bit bigger!
In fact, why not get creative and try using different kinds of candies to decorate his face?
I rate everything I bake on a scale of 1-4 with 4 being the best and these Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies earned 4 rolling pins. The peanut butter cookie was delicious and the added “extras”, especially those chocolate covered pretzels, took the ol’ standby to another level.
Plus it’s got to be given credit for being the cutest darn cookie I’ve ever made.
The bag of Hershey’s Chocolate-Covered Pretzels was a little pricier than I would have liked. It only came with 46 in a package.
I made 21 reindeer with the chocolate-covered antlers (ok, I admit it, I ate 4 pretzels in the process. I HAD to find out how they tasted!), before running out and switching to regular mini-pretzels. Please note that because the cookies are hot, the chocolate will, of course, melt.
It won’t be dripping off of the pretzels or melting from the morsel into the face, but it will become…
soft. SO, if you should BUMP into the pretzel or accidentally put your finger into the poor reindeer’s eye, you could find yourself with some road-kill-type looking cookies.
I should have taken a picture, but the evidence was eaten before I had the chance. And I would highly recommend using the chocolate-covered pretzels as opposed to the plain. Because for 1, they just taste so much better with the chocolate. But also, Rudolph won’t be losing his antlers when you go to move him to his resting place on the wire rack.
The chocolate acts as a pretty darn good antler adhesive. Kerry used M&M’s for her eyes and nose which would help to prevent eye injuries, but I thought they were cute with the morsels and red hots.
If you’re going to be having the little ones help you out with these, you might want to use the M&M’s because they “melt in your mouth, not in your hand”, and hopefully not on a reindeer’s face.
Then again, maybe you shouldn’t have the little ones help because they may burn themselves on the hot cookie sheet. Well, I’ll leave it up to you.
Just make sure you’re sticking the parts into the cookie as soon as they come out of the oven. You don’t want the cookie to harden. Then it becomes difficult to perform the necessary facial surgery.
Reindeer Cookies
The great thing about this recipe, too, is that you can use a Sugar Cookie or even a Snickerdoodle recipe for the cookie itself. AND you can get creative – maybe you have other things you’d like to use as facial parts!
I’m sure Santa would LOVE to see these under the tree this year with his glass of milk, and don’t forget that carrot for Rudolph!
Christmas Cookies
Christmas Cookies, O Christmas Cookies! How I love thee.
Nothing puts me in the holiday spirit quite like baking a batch of festive cookies. I love baking treats to share with friends and neighbors all year long but around Christmas I get even more chances to do it!
I really like finding new recipes every year to try but I have a few staples, too. Viennese Crescents are sure to make an appearance as well as Stained Glass Cookies.
‘Tis the season to bake with peppermint, too. I like these Peppermint Frosted Sugar Cookies, Double Chocolate Peppermint Kisses and Peppermint Blossom Cookies.
Where are my fans of oatmeal cookies? Try Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies and Pecan Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cookies this year!
Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies Recipe
Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies
Equipment
- mixing bowl
- Mixer
- Baking Sheet
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter room temperature
- ½ cup shortening
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- chocolate covered pretzels
- cinnamon red hots
- semi-sweet chocolate morsels
Instructions
- Into a medium bowl, sift flour with baking powder, and salt; set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter, shortening and sugars until light and fluffy, about 7 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time, making sure the first is fully incorporated before adding the next.
- Beat in peanut butter.
- Slowly add flour mixture, about 1/3 at a time, until just blended.
- Chill dough for 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Shape dough into 1-inch balls, pinching the bottom to give the reindeer his chin.
- Place onto cookie sheet about 2 inches apart and flatten slightly with the palm of your hand.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until set and just beginning to brown.
- Immediately upon removing from oven, place two chocolate-covered pretzels into the tops of the cookies for the antlers, two chocolate morsels for the eyes and a red hot for the nose.
- Allow to cool on cookie sheet for a couple of minutes and then gently transfer to a wire baking rack to cool completely.
Notes
If you like these Peanut Butter Cookies, then you’ll LOVE…
Salted Caramel Thumbprints
Viennese Crescents
Stained Glass Sugar Cookies
Caramel Apple Pie Crust Cookies
Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies
Happy holiday baking!
Comments & Reviews
These are sooo cute Lynne! Now I have to try them out…. can’t wait until I have a holiday party to go to with these in hand!
Another great cookie recipe, thanks for sharing.
oh my goodness, these reindeer are so cute! peanut butter, chocolate and pretzel?! YUM!!
Hi! I just wanted to let you know I am including these in a 25 christmas cookies and bar post at mommy’s sweet confessions, they are so fun!
Great recipe. You need a “print this recipe” button or you need to trim the adds on the right border. I printed about 8 pages of stupid adds.
AJ, thank you for your comment and I’m sorry if you printed extra unneeded paper. There is a green “Print-Friendly” button down at the bottom of the post. I placed them on the blog soon after I began it because I knew people wouldn’t want to print the pictures along with the directions.
Another great-looking recipe! I am wondering though, where did you find the red hots? I have been looking and cannot find them in the supermarkets anymore. I like them to flavor a fruit compote I make (with cranberries, apples, prunes and dried apricots) to have with turkey or pork. They melt down and give it just the right spicy cinnamon flavor that we like.
Terri, I’ve found them in our local Walmart. Yes, I’ve seen them in other recipes as well.
If you can’t find them at a local store, you can probably order them online through Amazon. Good luck!
Do you think I could use 1 cup of butter instead of butter plus shortening?
Great recipe!! I received a lot compliments on these cookies, especially regarding their “softness.” Everyone loved them.
i have more cookies here via:
http://tasteusa.blogspot.com/
Thanks so much for letting me know. That’s great to hear!
These reindeer cookies are so cute. We made them and I agree with you the chocolate covered pretzels taste better and stick on better! My kids loved them and we gobbled them up pretty quickly. Time to make some more.
Thanks so much for the comment, Edwina. So happy that you and the kids enjoyed them and adding some chocolate always makes things a little better anyway, right? 😉