Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies

These reindeer cookies are a peanut butter cookie with just a few “decorations” to make the face. This festive Christmas cookie is the perfect recipe to add to your holiday baking list and it’s easy enough to have the kids help you!

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I am here to tell you that this peanut butter cookie recipe is the bomb. There is seriously nothing worse than a dry crumbly peanut butter cookie- this is not one of those. These are soft and moist and don’t crumble down the front of your shirt. promise!

How to make Reindeer Cookies

To make these peanut butter cookies look like Rudolf the reindeer you’ll just need a few ingredients. The decorating is minimal guys. No pastry bags needed. Here a few tips for making the reindeer faces on these cookies.

1. Place the decorations quickly after the cookies come out of the oven. Because peanut butter cookies stiffen after they cool it is difficult if not impossible to get the pretzels, m&m’s and chocolate chips to stay on the cookies after they are cool.
2. Cut the pretzels carefully with a paring knife. Use the mini pretzels and carefully cut the rounded edges off so that you are left with a Y shape that looks like an antler!
3. To get the exact look in these pictures use mini chocolate chips for the eyes and a larger size holiday M&M for the nose. I used the holiday mint but a peanut butter M&M would also be the same size.

If you are looking for an even faster peanut butter reindeer cookie check out my nutter butter reindeer cookies. No baking required!

Ingredients Needed:

The ingredients for this peanut butter cookie recipe are standard baking ingredients. This is a classic peanut butter cookie and as such you don’t need extra fancy ingredients!

• All-Purpose Flour
• Baking Soda, Baking Powder & Salt
• Unsalted Butter
• Shortening
• Creamy Peanut Butter
• White & Brown Sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla Extract

Tools to help with cookie baking

If you’re doing a day of holiday baking like I do every year there are a few tools that I love that make the day easier and a little bit more enjoyable. 😉

• A great cookie scoop- A great scoop is literally a magic lifesaver. No more scooping with a spoon and shaping with hands. You can literally scoop out cookie in half the time it used to take you. My favorite one is this Jenaluca and this Norpro is slightly less expensive and has great reviews.
• A Silpat baking mat- The non-stick baking mat is essential with cookie baking! I love how easily the cookies come off, how evenly the cook and how easy the cleanup is! If you’d like to know a little bit more read my entire post about why I love my Silpat.
• A Kitchenaid Mixer- Kitchenaid stand mixers are a big expense, but gosh are they worth it. If you love to bake you’ll enjoy baking even more with this amazing kitchen appliance. I received mine as a wedding gift 13 years ago and I use it all. the. time.

I love these cookies and I hope you do too! When you make these be sure to share a picture with me! I love to see when you make recipes from the blog. Leave a comment or tag me on instagram @handmadeintheheartland or facebook !

Get the recipe for my favorite sour cream sugar cookies!