Peanut Butter Monster Cookies

NOTES & TIPS

Be sure to cream the butters and sugars together for 3-4 minutes, you will see the mixture change to a lighter color. When it gets pale you have beat in enough air.

After you have made your cookie dough, portion it out and flatten each of the 12 portions using your 3 center fingers. Place the marshmallow cream in a piping bag, then cut off the tip and pipe about 2 tablespoons into the center of each cookie. Wrap the cream in the dough, then flatten again before baking. This gives a very consistent and not too flat, not too tall cookie.

When the cookies come out of the oven. Immediately sprinkle them with some flakey sea salt, it helps cut the sweetness of the cookie and the marshmallow cream and makes them even more enjoyable!

I also reserve some candy for pressing into the top after they come out of the oven too. This gives that bakery look that you don't get from ONLY mixing the candy into the cookie dough.

Melt the marshmallows for stretching over the top in 15-second increments in the microwave until melted. Mine only took 45 seconds. Stir after each time in the microwave until stretchy.

Now is the time to exercise patience. The marshmallow stretching is messy. The best tip I have for you is, the less you work with at a time, the better. Use a small bit and stretch between 2 or 3 fingers and then press it over the cookies, brushing the marshmallow off onto the edges of the cookie to get it off your hands and to stick to the cookies.

Work slowly, and know it is a bit crazy, but if you get in the right mindset and have fun with it, the mess can be cleaned up with a little warm water.

Baked Fluffernutter Cookies can be kept in an air-tight container for up to 5 days at room temperature. And while mine would never make it there, they can be frozen for up to 3 months. Freeze them flat on a tray, then transfer them to a zip-top freezer bag.

SUBSTITUTIONS

My favorite peanut butter is crunchy! But you can use smooth in a pinch if you need to. There are whole peanuts going in later anyway.

If you have to use salted butter because that is all you have on hand, remove the addition of salt later in the recipe.

Light brown sugar is preferred for this recipe, however, you can use dark in a pinch. The cookies will just have a little deeper color and molasses flavor to them. Which isn't bad, just a little richer.

These cookies bake up beautifully and can be made gluten-free when you use THIS cup-for-cup baking flour swap.

I used a mix of Halloween M&M's and Reese's pieces candy for my cookies. You can use all of one kind if you prefer, but who doesn't want more chocolate and peanut butter?

While I prefer the original marshmallow fluff, you may also find other brands out there calling it marshmallow cream, they are essentially the same and you can use either for this cookie. You may also encounter it called marshmallow paste or spread.

While you might be tempted to use mini marshmallows in place of the "fluff" and it could work, the texture and end result just aren't the same. You CAN do it, but I'd heavily suggest using the marshmallow cream.

The time and place for the mini marshmallows is for melting to make the spider webs/mummy wraps, whichever you prefer to say they look like.

More of my favorite Fall Treats

If you love these Monster Fluffernutter Cookies, check out my other favorite fall version, Candy Corn Fluffernutters. They are based on the original that I baked for Joanna Gaines in the Silos Baking Competition.

And whether or not you are a fan of Candy Corn, make my Ultimate Candy Corn and Peanuts Snack Mix for Halloween night snacking while passing out candy.

While it might not be "Scary" it is scary good, all fall I love to make this Pumpkin Spice Bread that tastes just like Starbucks, but better cause it is fresh out of YOUR oven!