These Easy Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies are decorated with pretzels, candy eyes, and M&Ms. Kids and adults will love these delicious, cute, and fun Rudolph Reindeer cookies!

Easy Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies

Name: Easy Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies (Kid-Friendly!)
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 stick salted butter, softened at room temperature; 1 egg, at room temperature; 1 tsp vanilla; 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter (not natural); 2 tbsp + 2 tsp granulated sugar; 1/4 cup light brown sugar; 1 cup + 2 tbsp self-rising flour; 40 itty bitty mini pretzels; 40 candy eyes; 20 M&Ms in red or brown; 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, melted

Hey everyone! I can’t believe it’s Week 4 of Cara’s Christmas Cookie Countdown and only 2 weeks until Christmas! Be sure and check out all my recent cookie recipes, if you’re new here. 🙂

For today’s cookie recipe, I thought I’d switch things up and share a more fun, kid-friendly Christmas cookie, since Christmas and the holiday season is all about family, right?

Today I’m sharing my Easy Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies and they are so adorable, delicious, and fun to make!

In case you want to make these with your own family this year, keep reading for the full recipe and step-by-step tutorial.

Don’t forget to save this post for later too! 🙂

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Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies

These Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies are seriously the cutest Christmas cookies EVER, perfect for setting out for Santa, and are a simple cookie the kids can help make.

My boys had so much fun helping create these cute and yummy Rudolph reindeer cookies, and I totally didn’t mind since they feature my delicious peanut butter cookie recipe.

These cute peanut butter reindeer cookies are no fuss and very simple to make with just a few ingredients/tools, which I’ve included below.

They’re decorated with pretzels, candy eyes, and M&Ms that you “glue” on with the help of some melted white chocolate.

So easy and they look adorable on cookie trays for Christmas!

Recommended Tools:

Ingredients Needed:

Salted Butter
Large Egg
Vanilla Extract
Creamy Peanut Butter
Granulated Sugar
Light Brown Sugar
Self-Rising Flour

Cookie Decorating Items Needed:

How to Make & Decorate Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies

Scoop

After preparing and chilling your peanut butter cookie dough for a minimum of 2 hours, use a small cookie scoop like this one to form 20 cookie dough balls.

Shape

Next, roll each ball until smooth and pinch the sides to form an hourglass shape like shown in the photo below.

Slightly flatten out each cookie using the palm of your hand and place evenly spaced apart on a large cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake

Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes until the bottoms are lightly golden brown. Times may vary and may require more or less time depending on your oven.

I always recommend starting with the lowest time first, checking them, and then adding additional baking time if needed.

Decorate

After baking and cooling your peanut butter reindeer cookies, it’s time to decorate!

Start by laying out all your reindeer cookies on your parchment lined baking sheet.

To decorate the reindeer cookies, melt 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips in the microwave and gather 40 mini itty bitty pretzels.

Dip the bottom back side of each pretzel and adhere two of them to the tops of each cookie for the reindeer antlers, like the photo below.

Next, place the remaining white chocolate chips in a small Ziploc bag, snip a small opening in the corner with a pair of scissors, and place three small dots of white chocolate on each cookie to adhere the eyes and nose.

Quickly and gently place the candy eyes and brown or red M&Ms on each cookie and let the white chocolate firm up for 15 minutes before serving.

What To Use To Decorate Your Reindeer Cookies

For the Nose

I used peanut butter M&Ms for the nose on the Rudolph reindeer cookies because they’re bigger, and mini baking M&M’s for the brown reindeer cookies, but feel free to use whatever you have on hand.

For the Eyes

I recommend using candy eyes to give these reindeer cookies an ultra-cute “cartoon” look, however you can also use mini chocolate chips or even mini brown M&Ms.

For the Antlers

To make it super easy, I recommend using mini itty bitty pretzels for the reindeer antlers.

Regular size pretzels are just a tad too large and buying the mini one saves you from having to cut pretzels to size.

Aren’t these peanut butter reindeer cookies just adorable?!

Almost too cute to eat…almost. 😉

How to Store Leftover Reindeer Cookies

These Reindeer Cookies are best enjoyed the day you make them, but leftover cookies can be stored in airtight container for up to 3 days.

To help prevent the decorations from falling off, I do recommend placing the cookies in single layers and/or separating with parchment or wax paper.

Can I Freeze Reindeer Cookies?

If you want to make ahead, you can freeze the peanut butter cookie dough in balls before baking, then bake as directed when ready to make.

You can also freeze the peanut butter reindeer cookies after baking (minus all the decorations), then thaw in the fridge and decorate.

In general, frozen cookies stay good for 2-3 months.