Chocolate Peanut Butter Stuffed Cookies

If you love peanut butter and chocolate, you will definitely love these chocolate peanut butter stuffed cookies.

Imagine sinking your teeth into lightly crisp and soft chocolate peanut butter cookies and being surprised with a deliciously soft chocolate peanut butter filling on the inside. Well, that’s what these peanut butter stuffed cookies are are all about. 

These rich peanut butter chocolate cookies have a soft and crumbly texture and it complements perfectly to the soft stuffed chocolate peanut butter filling in the center.

These cookies would be perfect for chocolate and peanut butter lovers. Peanut butter is not only as used as the filling but is also added to the dough. And so is chocolate, it’s in both the dough as well as the filling.

And making these cookies is not that hard. I would not say it is super simple either mostly because of the soft peanut butter filling, but with the right techniques, you should be able to make these easily.

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How to Make

Ingredients

Cookies

• Plain flour + cocoa powder + baking powder + baking soda + salt
• Granulated sugar (white sugar)
• Soft brown sugar (dark brown sugar or light brown sugar)
• Butter
• Peanut butter
• Vanilla extract
• Egg

Filling:

• Peanut butter
• Cocoa powder
• Powdered sugar (Icing sugar)

Making the cookie stuffing

1. Start by making the filling for this peanut butter stuffed cookies. Measure peanut butter and sift icing sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl.
2. Mix all the ingredients until they come together into a thick paste.
3. Scoop the filling into 1 teaspoon sizes (you can use a measuring spoon or a cookie scoop to scoop the filling out) and form into tiny peanut butter ball and place them on a lined plate or tray. If the filling is too soft to form the balls, chill it for 10 to 15 minutes and then shape the balls.
4. Chill the divided filling while you mix the dough.

Mixing the dough for the stuffed cookies

1. Start by measuring the butter, peanut butter, and both sugars into a large bowl of an electric mixer (hand mixer or stand mixer). Beat all three ingredients until they turn creamy. Scrape the sides of the bowl.
2. Next, add the egg and vanilla extract. Beat until all traces of the egg are no longer visible.
3. Finally, add the remaining dry ingredients (flour mixture, i.e flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, and baking soda). Mix until the dough comes together into a soft ball.
4. Scoop and divide the dough into 1 tablespoon size balls of dough.

Shaping and baking the cookies

1. Shape each of the chocolate peanut butter cookie dough balls into a small bowl shape (balls with a deep dent).
2. Fill one peanut butter filling ball (prepared and chilled in the step above) into the bowl shaped dough (chocolate cookie portion).
3. Seal the peanut butter in.
4. Gently shape the cookie into a round ball. Flatten it lightly with your fingers and place the flattened cookie ball on a parchment paper or baking sheet / cookie sheet lined baking tray.

Continue the process to make the remaining peanut butter stuffed chocolate cookies. Bake cookies at 175 degrees Celsius for 9 minutes.

Remove the baked chocolate cookies from the oven, let them rest in the tray for about one minute before transferring them onto a wire rack (cooling rack) to cool completely. Store the cookies in an airtight container.

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Notes

Crunchy peanut butter vs creamy peanut butter

• You can use either type. Both will yield the same results. The chunky peanut butter will leave you with cookies that have little chunks of peanuts here and there which actually is quite nice. I have used crunchy peanut butter in my recipe.

Why is it important to sift the cocoa powder and icing sugar?

• I have used cocoa powder in both the cookies as well as the filling. As for the icing sugar, I have used it in the filling. Both of these ingredients tend to be lumpy. And these tiny lumps cannot sometimes be broken by merely mixing or beating them with a cake mixer.
• The best way to work with cocoa powder and icing sugar is therefore to sift them.

What if the filling is too soft?

• The peanut butter stuffing is soft but not sticky. Still, it is quite a challenge to put it into the cookies and the most effective way to work with it is to chill it until it is more manageable.
• And to make sure the filling is consistent in all cookies, I scooped it out using my measuring spoon . Once scooped, I formed them into round balls and chilled them until they were firm. I made these in batches and took them out of the fridge, one batch at a time so that they don’t become soft again at room temperature while shaping the cookies.

How to ensure consistent cookie sizes?

• For the chocolate peanut butter cookie dough, to make sure the cookie sizes were consistent, I also used a measuring spoon to scoop the dough out. And for these, I used a full tablespoon measurement. For each scoop of dough, I rolled it into a smooth ball, made a deep dent in the center, filled in one ball of chilled chocolate peanut butter balls in the center and carefully pinched the cookie dough to cover the centers. And I flattened these stuffed cookies slightly before putting them on a cookie tray for baking.

What if the cookie dough is too dry?

• If you find the cookie dough too dry or crumbly to work with, try to work it with your hands for a 15 to 20 seconds. That should make it soft and easier to work with.

Baking the cookies

• The cookie dough for these peanut butter stuffed cookies is 1 tablespoon in size and the stuffing a teaspoon size. For this size, the cookies need to be baked for 9 minutes at 175 degrees Celsius.
• If you wish to make larger cookies, retain the oven temperature but increase the baking time accordingly. Similarly, if you wish to make smaller peanut butter stuffed cookies, reduce the time accordingly. Do take note that the smaller the cookies, the harder it gets to seal the stuffing in the cookies.
• For the given time and cookie size, you will get peanut butter stuffed cookies that are soft and crumbly. Baking the cookies longer will give you a more crunchy cookie texture.  

Can you omit the cocoa powder in the peanut butter centers?

• Yes you can. The difference is that your cookies will now be stuffed with plain peanut butter and not the chocolate version. The other difference is the change in the consistency of your cookie centers - it will now be a lot softer.
• You can add more icing sugar to compensate for the cocoa powder but that might make your stuffed cookie centers too sweet.
• The other way is to chill the peanut butter filling thoroughly so that it is easier to work with.

Like these decadent chocolate and peanut butter cookies? Here are my other posts you might want to check out

• Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Simple Peanut Butter Cookies with Sprinkles
• Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Cookies
• Ultimate Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake with Oreo Crust
• Peanut Butter Oreos - Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full, printable version of my chocolate peanut butter stuffed cookies recipe:

And that's my yummy chocolate peanut butter stuffed cookies recipe for you.

Happy baking 🙂