These vegan peanut butter stuffed chocolate cookies are the ultimate decadent treat! Soft, chewy dark chocolate cookies hide a rich, gooey peanut butter centre, you won't be able to stop at just one!
They are surprisingly easy to make with simple ingredients but are addictively good!
These vegan peanut butter stuffed chocolate cookies are my new favourite cookie! The pairing of rich, dark chocolate cookie and gooey, salty peanut butter filling is utterly heavenly, especially if you eat them while they are still slightly warm so that the peanut butter is still melty!
While most peanut butter stuffed cookie recipes add sugar to the peanut butter filling, I prefer to keep it 100% peanut butter to avoid making the cookies overly sweet. I tested these with a peanut butter + icing sugar filling and they were way too sweet and the filling was claggy rather than gooey. This does mean that you must use a thick, creamy peanut butter rather than a natural one however as natural would be too runny to shape.
Ingredient Details:
Peanut butter: It is imperative that you use a thick, creamy peanut butter NOT a natural one, ie it should contain added palm oil to make it thick. Natural peanut butter contains 100% peanuts and is far too runny in this case. I do not add anything to the peanut butter filling to avoid making the cookies overly sweet, which means that the peanut butter needs to be thick enough on it's own to shape into balls. Either smooth or crunchy is fine, as long as it is thick! I use Whole Earth smooth.
Vegan butter: Please, for the love of holy baking, use a block butter/margarine to make these cookies, not the spreadable kind in a tub.
The spreadable kind contains too much water and may make your dough too soft and your cookies too cakey.
Baking powder and bicarb: Baking powder generally makes for taller, cakier cookies, and bicarbonate of soda makes for craggier, denser, browner cookies. I find that a mix of both provides the best texture.
Non-dairy milk: Non-dairy milk replaces the moisture that would usually come from egg. You can use any kind you like except coconut milk, but I recommend using soy milk if possible. It has the highest protein content so is the closest swap for egg.
Plain flour: Just regular plain (all-purpose) flour is best here. I haven't tried making these gluten-free.
Chopped chocolate: You can use chocolate chips as I did for the cookies in the photos, but I actually recommend using chopped chocolate for the best cookies. Dark or milk is up to you but I always plump for dark, cookies are quite sweet enough already.
Sugar: White sugar leads to thin and crisp cookies, and brown sugar leads to tall and moist cookies; using a mix of both gives you the best of both worlds and the best texture.
Either caster or granulated sugar will work and I recommend using light brown soft rather than dark.
Cocoa powder: You need to use Dutch processed cocoa, not natural.
How To Make Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Cookies:
(Full measurements and instructions can be found in the recipe card at the bottom of the page)
- Step 1: Start by shaping the peanut butter into 12 balls, they don't need to be neat. Place them on a tray and freeze.
- Step 2: Cream together the butter and sugars until smooth.
- Step 3: Add the milk, vanilla extract, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa powder and beat again until smooth.
- Step 4: Add the flour and stir until no dry patches remain. Fold in the chocolate chunks. Chill for 30 minutes.
- Step 5: Divide the dough into 12, shape them into balls then use your thumbs to make a deep indentation in the middle.
- Step 6: Place one of the frozen peanut butter balls in each indentation. Use your hands to mould the cookie dough around the peanut butter, fully encasing it.
- Step 7: Place the balls of dough well spaced apart on 2 lined baking sheets.
- Step 8: Bake for 12-15 minutes.
Top Tips:
For the best results make sure that you follow the recipe closely. As always, I highly recommend weighing your ingredients using the gram measurements (with a digital scale), rather than the cup conversions. Cup measurements are simply not accurate enough for baking and I cannot guarantee the best results if you use them. A gram is always a gram, but a cup won’t always measure out the same amount.
Tablespoon and teaspoon measurements are for proper measuring spoons, NOT regular kitchen spoons. A Tablespoon is 15ml and a teaspoon is 5ml and they should be level, not heaped.
Cookies may seem like a simple thing to bake but they can actually be quite tempermental and any seemingly minor changes to the recipe or exact ingredients used can have a drastic effect. For this reason you should make the recipe exactly as written.
If you only have natural peanut butter (100% peanuts) then you will need to add around 50g of icing (powdered) sugar to it to thicken it enough to shape into balls.
For the best looking cookies, save a few of the chocolate chunks to press into the tops of the balls of cookie dough before you bake them.
Bake the cookies on a metal baking sheet, not in a glass dish or on a silicone sheet. These do not conduct heat in the same way as metal does so the cookies won't turn out as well.
Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies are fragile while hot, so don't attempt to move them from the tray straight away or they may fall apart.
FAQ's:
The baked cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days though they are best eaten on the day they are baked.
The cookie dough will keep in the fridge, and the peanut butter balls in the freezer, for up to 4 days (as long as they are both well covered). You can also fill and shape the cookies, freeze them spaced apart on a tray until solid then pop them in a freezer bag or container and freeze for up to three months.
They can be baked right from the freezer but may take a couple of minutes extra to bake.
I don't recommend freezing the baked cookies, but you can freeze them before baking, as above.
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Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Cookies (vegan)
Ingredients
- 130 g (½ cup) thick, creamy peanut butter (NOT natural)* (either smooth or chunky is fine)
- 115 g (½ cup) vegan block butter slightly softened
- 120 g (½ cup + 2 Tablespoons) light brown soft sugar
- 50 g (¼ cup) caster or granulated sugar
- 2 Tablespoons unsweetened non-dairy milk (I use soy)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 40 g (5 Tablespoons) cocoa powder
- 160 g (1 + ⅓ cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
- 140 g (5 oz/¾ cup) dark chocolate roughly chopped (or chocolate chips)
Instructions
- Line a small tray with baking paper. Divide the peanut butter into 12, approx 11g per portion, and shape them into rough balls, they don't need to be perfectly neat. If it is feeling too soft to shape, chill the peanut butter in the freezer briefly to firm it up.130 g (½ cup) thick, creamy peanut butter (NOT natural)*
- Place the peanut butter balls spaced apart on the lined tray and place in the freezer for at least 30 minutes while you prepare the cookie dough.
- To make the cookie dough, cream together the butter and light brown soft and caster sugars with an electric mixer until smooth.115 g (½ cup) vegan block butter, 120 g (½ cup + 2 Tablespoons) light brown soft sugar, 50 g (¼ cup) caster or granulated sugar
- Add the milk, vanilla extract, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa powder and beat again until smooth.2 Tablespoons unsweetened non-dairy milk (I use soy), 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), 40 g (5 Tablespoons) cocoa powder
- Add the flour and stir until no dry patches remain. Stir in most of the chocolate, reserving a handful to top the cookies with. Cover and place the bowl in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.160 g (1 + ⅓ cups) plain (all-purpose) flour, 140 g (5 oz/¾ cup) dark chocolate
- While the dough is chilling preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F/gas mark 4 and line two baking sheets with baking paper.
- Divide the dough into 12 even pieces (use a scale for accuracy), shape them into balls then use your thumbs to make a deep indentation in the middle.
- Place one of the frozen peanut butter balls in each indentation. Use your hands to mould the cookie dough around the peanut butter, fully encasing it, there should be no peanut butter showing through.
- Place the balls of dough well spaced apart on the lined baking sheets. Press a few pieces of the reserved chocolate on top of each one but do not flatten the balls.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes until they are just firm around the edges but still soft in the middle (they will firm up more upon cooling).
- If you prefer flatter cookies, bash the tray on the countertop a couple of times to flatten them out. Leave the cookies to cool on the tray for ten minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- See post above for tips, details and step-by-step photos.
- *It is imperative that you use a thick, creamy peanut butter NOT a natural one, ie it should contain added palm oil to make it thick. Natural peanut butter contains 100% peanuts and is far too runny in this case. I do not add anything to the peanut butter filling to avoid making the cookies overly sweet, which means that the peanut butter needs to be thick enough on it's own to shape into balls. Either smooth or crunchy is fine, as long as it is thick! I use Whole Earth smooth.
- For the best results make sure that you follow the recipe closely. As always, I highly recommend weighing your ingredients using the gram measurements (with a digital scale), rather than the cup conversions. Cup measurements are simply not accurate enough for baking and I cannot guarantee the best results if you use them. A gram is always a gram, but a cup won’t always measure out the same amount.
If you tried this recipe let me know how it went! Rate it, leave a comment or tag @domestic_gothess on Instagram and hashtag it #domesticgothess
Alan Henry
Spectacular.
Domestic Gothess strikes again.
Just made them last night. So easy to make.
Was wondering if you could put other things in the middle like hazelnut spread or biscoff.
Thoughts?
Hannah
So glad you enjoyed them! Yes I think they would definitely work with other fillings.