Rich chocolate cookies stuffed with a creamy peanut butter surprise! These peanut butter stuffed chocolate cookies are my most recent favorite cookie, and I think you’re going to love them just as much as I do!
I can’t think of a better way to welcome a new week than with a cookie recipe. Not just any cookie recipe, but a big fat chocolate one with a peanut butter surprise.
This cold and dreary Monday, I’m coming at you with a peanut butter stuffed chocolate cookie, featuring not one but two different types of chocolate and a creamy, peanut-buttery filling. Forget sneaking Reese’s cups out of your kid’s plastic pumpkin tomorrow night, this is a peanut butter and chocolate combo that puts those orange-wrapped candies to shame.
I based the chocolate cookie portion off of my beloved double chocolate chip cookie recipe, with a few tweaks to make the dough stable enough to hold in a peanut butter filling.
You’ll need to chill the dough for a little bit to make it easy to handle and mold around the peanut butter filling, and this also keeps it from spreading too much int he oven and leaking out all of that peanut butter goodness.
A few notes I want to mention that are actually good practice for just about any cookie recipe:
- When baking your cookies, don’t place cookie dough on a cookie sheet that’s still warm from the oven, this can cause them to spread too much as the dough starts cooking/melting prematurely.
- Prepare all of your cookie dough balls and in between batches keep the dough chilling in the refrigerator while the other batches cook. The colder the dough is, the less it will spread in while baking.
The peanut butter filling reminds me of a seriously creamy fudge, or maybe even of my buckeye recipe. It’s only three ingredients; you’ll mix everything together, drop the filling by 2-teaspoon-sized scoops, and then chill in the freezer while you prepare your chocolate cookie dough. It might seem like a small amount of filling while you’re scooping it, but you’ll find that you need a lot of cookie dough to cover it.
This recipe makes a lot of dough, but only makes 18 cookies. They are big, thick, better-than-bakery-style cookies, though, and incredibly decadent.
Enjoy!
If you like peanut butter and chocolate, make sure to check out my peanut butter pie, my Reese’s stuffed chocolate chip cookies, and my peanut butter chocolate chip cookies!
Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Cookies
Ingredients
PB filling:
- ½ cup (128 g) creamy peanut butter
- ¼ cup (31 g) powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Cookies:
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 1 ¼ cup (250 g) brown sugar firmly packed
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature preferred
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 ⅓ cup (290 g) flour
- ½ cup (50 g) cocoa powder
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ cup (170 g) mini chocolate chips optional
- ½ cup (85 g) semisweet chocolate chips for tops of cookies, optional
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
Peanut Butter Filling
- Prepare your peanut butter filling first by combining peanut butter, sugar, and vanilla in a medium-sized bowl and stirring until all ingredients are well-combined.½ cup (128 g) creamy peanut butter, ¼ cup (31 g) powdered sugar, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Drop peanut butter mixture by 2 teaspoon-sized scoops onto a wax paper lined cookie sheet. Place in freezer to chill while you prepare your cookie dough.
Chocolate Cookie Dough
- Combine softened butter and sugars in large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat together until well-combined.1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, 1 ¼ cup (250 g) brown sugar, ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- Add eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Stir in vanilla extract.2 large eggs, 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, cornstarch, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.2 ⅓ cup (290 g) flour, ½ cup (50 g) cocoa powder, 1 Tablespoon cornstarch, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ¾ teaspoon salt
- Gradually add dry ingredients to wet, stirring well until ingredients are well incorporated.
- Stir in mini chocolate chips.¾ cup (170 g) mini chocolate chips
- Cover bowl with cling wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
- Once dough is nearly done chilling, preheat oven to 375F (190C) and prepare cookie sheets by lining with parchment paper.
- Remove cookie dough from refrigerator and peanut butter filling from the freezer.
- Use a 1 ½ Tbsp-sized cookie scoop and scoop a portion of cookie dough.
- Make a crater in the center of the dough with your thumb and gently press a frozen dollop of peanut butter filling in the center.
- Take another scoop of cookie dough and cover the peanut butter filling. Roll the dough around the filling until you have a smooth ball of cookie dough with no peanut butter showing.
- Place on prepared cookie sheet and bake on 375F (190C) for 13 minutes.
- Once cookies have baked, remove from the oven and within 3 minutes of removing from the oven, gently press additional chocolate chips onto the top.½ cup (85 g) semisweet chocolate chips
- Allow cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Karen
Can I use a natural peanut butter or should I use skippy? Thank you
Sam
Hi Karen! I have not tried it with natural peanut butter. There is a chance it could cause issues, but if you do try it I would love to know how it goes. 🙂
Marils
The filling is very sweet. So, to make it taste more like fresh roasted peanuts, I use a few drops of water in some instant coffee (to liquify it), and mix it into the filling). The roast coffee flavor will amplify the roasted peanut flavor. Use only a tiny bit, and then taste and see if you want more. If you use to much, the filling will be bitter.
Kevin g
can you add a fruit preserve to change it up instead of peanut butter
Sam
Hi Kevin! I haven’t personally tried it. The fruit preserve is going to behave a little differently than the peanut butter. It could work. I just can’t say for sure that it will. If you try it let me know how it goes. 🙂
Estellita B.
I used 1/2 the butter….. my stove and altitude, is the reason for this. I also left them in for 5 extra mins on the 2nd batch which both came out great. This is due to my kids liking different textures. Oh I also added mini Reeses pieces to the peanut filling.
Jack
I was wondering if there would be a difference if i had no cornstarch? and what exactly it’s for.
Sam
Hi Jack! You can use a flour in place of the cornstarch. The cornstarch helps make the cookies more soft and chewy. 🙂
Jack
thank you so much ! i actually found a substitute which was rice flour and they turned out perfect ! so ooey gooey i love this recipe thank you so much 🙂
Rian
In my country tablespoons and cookie scoops are measured very differently, are you able to confirm how much the dough balls weigh (in grams/ounces) before baking? I’m aiming for a smaller batch of cookies but I don’t want them too large either so I don’t know whether I should plan to just half the recipe or do less than half.
Sam
Hi Rian! Unfortunately I don’t know the weight on the dough balls. 🙁 You could always freeze the dough if you have extra that you don’t want to bake it right away.
Sara
Can you confirm the weight of the flour for me please? From my math, the ml looks closer to 4 cups, just want to confirm. Thank you!
Sam
Hi Sara! I’m not really sure what’s going on with the metric measurements in this recipe as none of them appear to be accurate. I will get this fixed as soon as I can. It will be 292g (each cup 1 125g). I’m so sorry for the confusion. 🙁
Kelly Jo
These turned out perfect! Thank you for the recipe. Cannot wait to try out some of your other recipes.
Cheryl
Hi! im wondering if it’s possible to not freeze the fillings at all, and just fill them into the cookies?
Sam
Hi Cheryl! I’m not going to say it’s impossible, but it will make things a lot more difficult for you.
Kay
I was wondering if it’s possible (to keep them as delicious) but to make the peanut butter balls smaller so that I can get more than 18 cookies from the recipe. If so, how long would you suggest I bake them?
Thank you!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
That should work, but we aren’t sure on bake time. Just keep an eye on them! Please let us know how they turn out for you 😊
Kay
OMG! These are delicious! And it worked to cut the peanut butter balls in half. I got 37 normal-size cookies from the recipe. I baked them for 10 minutes. I will be winning the Golden Spatula competition at work, for sure!
ROB
Do these freeze well ?
Sam
Hi Rob! These should do just fine in the freezer. 🙂
KAREN
These look so yummy!! Would arrowroot or tapioca starch be a good sub for the cornstarch? Have corn allergies in the house.
Sam
Hi Karen! I have honestly not tried either of those substitutes but I suspect arrowroot would work perfectly fine as a substitute. Alternatively you can simply substitute with an equal amount of flour, while the cookies aren’t *quite* as soft made this way, they still will be delicious! 🙂