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.
Niyatee Ravipati
hi I would like to make these red velvet, should i just add red food coloring to the cookie dough to achieve that?
Sugar Spun Run
Hello, Niyatee! Adding food coloring will just adjust the color of the cookie dough, are you just looking to adjust the color or the flavor to be red velvet in taste?
Megan
Hi, Sam, I’m trying to avoid a run to the store. Any reason I can’t use crunchy instead of creamy? Will it change the result?
Love your recipes, btw, thanks! Meg
Sugar Spun Run
Hello, Megan! Crunchy peanut butter should be fine. I hope that you enjoy the peanut butter stuffed chocolate cookies. 🙂
Megan
Thanks, we will I’m sure! 🌺
MP
Fab. Have been on a ‘baking with peanut butter’ kick…but also did nutella and cookie butter cookies in this batch as I had jars of all three. Lucky dip which one you get when you go to pull out a cookie!
Sam
I am so glad you are enjoying the cookies so much! I would not complain if I had to choose any of those cookies. 🙂
Lori
My husband was craving chocolate so started Googling recipes with ingredients I had (and didn’t require chocolate chips…glad you made them “optional”). I will say, these were not disappointing! He loved them (and so did I). Now to see how long they last…lol
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed the cookies so much, Lori! I am impressed there are still some cookies left. 😉
Rosellen
So glad u posted this recipe ! I’ve been craving peanut butter and chocolate and have been buying wayyyyy too many Reece Cups and was going to search the internet for a good cookie such as yours – looks like my search is over !! I cannot wait to make these !! Reading all the reviews, and my own personal experience with your recipes, I just know these are gonna be great !!! Thanks again for sharing !!
Sam
I hope you love the cookies! 🙂
makayla
these look delicouse my family loves cookies and i can;t wait to make them and try them thx.
Sam
I hope everyone loves them, Makayla! 🙂
Nataliid
The best cookie recipe i have ever made! AMAZING! ♥
Sam
So glad to hear you enjoyed!!! 🙂
Deb Moan
These are amazing! The second batch I made I actually put the filling in the one half of all the cookies then sealed them up with more dough. That was less messy than trying to fill one then cover and seal it. This is a great recipe.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them, Deb! 🙂
Kim
What kind of scoop do you use for the peanut butter? Is that an ice cream scoop?
Sam
Hi Kim! This is the actual scoop that I use (affiliate): , it’s just a small cookie dough scoop. I hope that helps!
Mangia Strong
I made these today and they are wonderful cookies!!! Turned out excellent – everything you would expect from a chocolate-peanut-butter cookie. This is a good recipe with good results. I noticed that the frozen peanut butter filling balls were getting soft so kept them in the freezer and took out only a couple at a time as I was making the cookies – worked out great. This recipe is definitely a keeper. Thank-you Sam!!!
Jennifer
I was skeptical about how these would taste, but they are fantastic! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
kim
These are a gift from Sam! they are just wonderful! Big soft cookies, that hold up great! The only thing I did differently, only because I had ran out, was didn’t add the chocolate chips, and rolled them in raw sugar, and they were incredible! My hubby, who refuses to try new things, was all about these.
I love your web site and find myself on it a few times a week to see what sweet ideas you have for us.
Thank you so much for sharing all of your recipes with us!
Sam
This made my day to read! I’m so happy to hear that they were such a hit, even for your husband!!
Thank you so much for coming back and commenting to let me know how you liked the cookies, I really appreciate it, Kim!! 🙂
CakePants
Ooh, these look downright dreamy! I’ve been eating a lot of PB cups lately to get my sweet tooth fix, but I’ll have to try these cookies when I have a bit more time. I love cookies with surprise centers!
Tess
Do you use a natural peanut butter (no sweetener) for this recipe?
Sam
Hi Tess! I only recommend using creamy peanut butter (not natural, think like generic or Jif classic creamy peanut butter) for this recipe.
I haven’t tried it with natural so I don’t know that it would work that way.
I hope that helps!
shawnna griffin
hey girl- this looks so yummy!
stacey marie
i am so excited to make this recipe for peanut butter stuffed chocolate cookie this week end !! i will give you feed back next week .
thank you
Sam
I hope you love them!!! Please let me know how they turn out for you!! 🙂