Discs of Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter are stuffed into the middle of a no chill chocolate chip cookie for the most perfect peanut butter stuffed cookie situation.
Hi hi! Happy Saturday! I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a struggle to get back into the swing of things after the New Year. I picked up a super cute case of bronchitis, so it’s been a bit of a mission to get back into something that resembles regular life and routine (whatever that is). I have to remind myself that this happens every January, and it will soon pass!
I wanted to start off this year with a couple of jazzed up simple recipes, and what better place to start than with these Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies? These guys are massive, super easy to make, and the cookies don’t require any chilling, meaning that you can have these ready to eat ASAP.
Before we get into it, I want to tell you about the peanut butter that I stuffed these bad boys with. Fix and Fogg is a small New Zealand company who makes kickass peanut butter. They are based in Wellington, the city that I went to university in (and the city we are hoping to live in when we eventually move home), and operate out of a tiny little facility down a side alley in downtown Wellington, where they create the most incredible nut butters. I used to stock up every time that I was home, but I am SO, so excited that we can finally get them here in the states too! Their crunchy peanut butter is a toast time staple around here, but they also make all kinds of incredible flavoured nut butters - there’s a coffee maple, a fruit toast, a honey one, one called ‘smoke and fire’ which is spicy and smoky, and one of my favourites - their dark chocolate peanut butter. The dark chocolate PB is made with 62% dark chocolate, and it works so well in everything, including as the stuffing for these Chocolate Chip Cookies.
I took my regular cookie recipe and tweaked it a little - upping the muscovado sugar content for some more caramel notes, and then increasing the flour and leavening and decreasing the butter content just a touch to give a more sturdy cookie that would hold its shape wrapped around a disc of dark chocolate peanut butter. I then went full nerd on the process, testing chill times and baking temperatures to work out what worked best in terms of texture and keeping the peanut butter intact. Surprisingly, chill times didn’t make a difference, but the bake temperature made a significant difference in how much the peanut butter spread. Upping the bake temperature to 375°f (190°c) instead of the usual 350°f (190°c) meant that the cookie baked a little quicker, minimising the spread of the filling in the centre. So here we have it - giant peanut butter filled cookies, which require zero chill time. Everyone wins.
A few wee tips:
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I used a bar of chocolate for these cookies - I love how the uneven edges give texture within the cookie. Chopped wafers will work too.
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I worked out a new to me way of adding additional chocolate onto the top (which is an optional step but gives you epic chocolate puddles). You flatten one ball of dough, press the chocolate onto the top side, then continue as usual and roll it into a ball, which then gives you even chocolate distribution as the cookie bakes. This is optional - I like to chop up a little extra chocolate and keep it in a bowl next to me to do this step while I am assembling. I am a sucker for a good chocolate puddle.
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I found that the best way to get the peanut butter inside the cookie was to plop it out onto a pan lined with baking paper, then freeze until solid, then sandwich between two pieces of cookie dough, forming a seal around the outside, and then shaping into a ball.
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A cookie scoop is the best way to evenly portion your dough. I have a bunch but the one I reach for the most is this 2 Tbsp one. They are cheap but make your life so much easier when it comes to getting consistently sized cookies.
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You won’t use all of the peanut butter I have called for here - you want to make 12 or 13 2 tsp sized blobs of it, which you will use to stuff the cookies. I transferred the peanut butter to a bowl first and gave it a good mix to ensure it was even in consistency.
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Store the peanut butter blobs in the freezer while you aren’t using them - I like to get the first batch on to bake and then assemble the next batch just as they are almost finished baking, then use the first baking sheet to bake off the final batch. I did this in three batches, each with four cookies per baking sheet. They are big and do spread a little - you could get away with five per sheet, just make sure that they are well spaced.
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Sometimes your cookies bake up to be not so perfectly round. While I am all about embracing cookies as they naturally are, I do like them to be perfectly round, and a little trick for this is to take a cookie cutter slightly bigger than the cookie, place it over the top and use the cutter to scoot the cookie into a round shape. It’s definitely an optional step but works extremely well!
Thank you so much to Taste of New Zealand of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise for Sponsoring this post! All opinions are my own.
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Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour plus cooling time
- Yield: 12 large cookies 1x
Description
Discs of Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter are stuffed into the middle of a no chill chocolate chip cookie for the most perfect peanut butter stuffed cookie situation.
Ingredients
- 150g Fix and Fogg Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter
- 200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 160g muscovado sugar or dark brown sugar
- 100g granulated sugar
- 60g dark brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 320g all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- ¾ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 325g dark chocolate from a bar, coarsely chopped, plus about 75g extra for putting on top (optional)
- Flaky Sea Salt to finish (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°f / 190°c. Line three baking sheets with parchment paper (you will bake the cookies in batches, four per sheet).
- Mix the Fix and Fogg Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter well to ensure it is evenly incorporated. Scoop out 2 tsp blobs and space evenly on one of the parchment paper lined baking sheets. Transfer to the freezer and freeze for 20 minutes while you prepare the cookie dough.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars on high speed for 5 minutes, until pale, and light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla, and mix to combine, scraping down the bowl when necessary.
- Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add to the mixing bowl, and mix on low to just combine - you want some streaks of flour remaining.
- Add the chopped chocolate and mix until just incorporated. Remove the bowl from the mixer and give a few mixes by hand using a flexible spatula, to ensure even incorporation of the chocolate.
- Remove the peanut butter blobs from the freezer. To assemble the cookies, scoop out two 2-Tbsp balls of dough. Flatten both into discs, slightly larger than your blob of peanut butter. If you are adding chocolate to the top (see notes), do that now and make sure the side with the chocolate will be facing outward - I like to add the chocolate, turn the disc over, and then add the peanut butter blob to the other side.
- Take a blob of the peanut butter and place it onto one of the discs, then top with a second disc. Pinch the edges together to seal in the peanut butter, then gently round it and place it onto the baking sheet. Repeat another three times until you have four cookie dough balls - space evenly on the baking sheet. Return the blobs to the freezer until you are ready to assemble the next batch.
- Bake the first batch of cookies for 13 to 14 minutes, until golden brown and the edges are set. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with flaky sea salt. Allow to cool on the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
- Repeat the assembly and baking process with the remainder of the cookies.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature.
Keywords: peanut butter stuffed cookie, stuffed cookie, chocolate chip cookie, peanut butter, dark chocolate peanut butter
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