To make peanut butter cookies, first and foremost, beat the butter really hard for two minutes until it becomes creamy. Then add the brown and the white sugar to it and beat it again for 2 minutes. Thereafter break an egg, and add it along with 1/2 a cup of peanut butter to the mixture. 

Once that is done, in a separate bowl, add all the dry ingredients such as flour, salt, 3/4 tsp of baking soda, and 1/2 tsp of baking powder and whisk vigorously. Add this to the sugar and butter mixture and mix well. This is the cookie dough with which you will make the peanut butter cookies.

Once the cookie dough is ready, wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 degree Fahrenheit, which is 190 degree Celsius. 

Take the dough out of the refrigerator, and convert it into moderately sized balls. On a non-greasy cookie oven sheet, place the dough balls at least 3 inches away from one another. 

Use a fork to flatten the dough balls and make criss-cross patterns on it. This process is known as forking the cookie dough. At this point in time, remember to dip the fork in the sugar syrup so that the fork doesn't stick to the dough and you can effortlessly make the criss-cross pattern. 

Thereafter, place the cookies inside the oven and bake them at 375 degree Fahrenheit for nearly 10 minutes. After that, remove the cookies and place them in a rack to cool down. If you wish to make the cookies chewier, bake them for 15-20 minutes at 300 degree Fahrenheit.