Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches
Chocolate and peanut butter come together to create the ultimate treat: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches! This recipe features a rich chocolate sugar cookie (with added tips on how to ensure your cookie keep’s its shape!) that is paired with everyone’s favourite: creamy peanut butter! Not feeling peanut butter? These Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches can be made with Nutella, almond butter, SunButter, etc!
Tips for making Chocolate Cookies that hold their shape
No baking powder
Baking powder and baking soda not only make things rise up, they make things puff in all uninhibited directions – meaning that if you add baking powder your chocolate cookies will puff up and lose their shape.
Chill the sugar cookies
Okay, I know we all hate doing this, but its so important for the shape! Cooling the chocolate sugar cookies allows the butter in the dough to solidify and cool. This means that when the cookies enter the oven they are going to spread out WAY less! You can either put them in the fridge for an hour or in the freezer for 20 minutes before baking.
Bake at a high oven temperature
Baking at a high-ish oven temperature is essential to chocolate sugar cookies that hold their shape because the high temperature causes the proteins to quickly set in the cookies, locking in its shape, before the fats have time to melt and spread!
Use a spatula to transfer
A sure-fire way to ruin the shape of your cookies is by using your fingers to peel it off the counter. When you’ve cut out the cookies from the rolled out dough, the best way to transfer them is by using a thin offset spatula. Basically slide the spatula under the cookie, lift it up, then use the spatula to transfer the cookie to the baking sheet. This ensures that the chocolate cookie isn’t misshaped in any way.
Chilling the chocolate cookie dough
After you’ve made the cookie dough, you have to plop it into the fridge to chill for about 2 hours. Chilling the dough before rolling it out serves 2 purposes:
One, it allows the starch molecules to hydrate with the fat and water present from the dough. This makes the chocolate sugar cookie dough more uniform and less sticky, which in turn makes rolling it out WAY easier.
Second, cold doughs are far easier to handle than warm doughs. Plain and simple. Warm, room temperature cookie doughs are sticky and hard to handle. Warm doughs tend to stick to everything – to your counter, to your rolling pin, even to the cookie cutters – it’s just really a nuisance. For those reasons, a chilled dough is infinitely better. It’s easy to handle and doesn’t stick too much to everything.
How to make the chocolate peanut butter cookie sandwiches
1. Cream butter and sugar: Add the butter, sugars, and vanilla extract to a bowl, then beat until it looks creamy and combined.
2. Add egg: Beat in the egg until it is well-combined with everything else and the batter looks smooth.
3. Add dry ingredients: Add in the flour, cocoa, and salt, then beat again until a dough forms, clinging to the beater.
4. Chill: Using your hands, bring together the dough, divide it in half and shape it into two disc shapes. Place the discs into the fridge to chill for 2 hours.
5. Roll out & chill: Remove the dough from the fridge and allow it to sit on the counter for 5 minutes to warm slightly. Next, roll each dough out, cut out your cookies, transfer them onto a baking sheet, then transfer to the freezer for 20 minutes.
6. Bake: Bake the chocolate sugar cookies until the edges are just beginning to turn golden. Allow the cookies to cool to room temperature, then fill with peanut butter, and sandwich together to make the chocolate peanut butter cookie sandwiches!
Tools I used to make these chocolate cookies
Parchment Paper
Instead of rolling the chocolate peanut butter cookie sandwiches out on a heavily floured surface, I rolled each disc of dough out between 2 sheets of parchment. This makes for easy clean up, and doesn’t leave any flour marks on the chocolate cookies.
Cookie Cutters
These are the scalloped shaped ones I used, and these are the heart shaped ones I used for the centre cut-out!
Cookie Stamp
I used this Nordic Ware Cookie Stamp to create the diamond pattern on the cookies! I simply pressed the dough the stamp, then used the cookie cutter within the stamps outline. Totally optional though!
Get the Recipe: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches
Ingredients
- 14 tbsp (199g) Unsalted Butter,, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100g) White Sugar
- 1/2 cup (110g) Brown Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 1 Large Egg, at room temperature
- 2 cups (240g) All Purpose Flour,, recommend that you weigh rather than measure volumetrically
- 3/4 cup (75g) Dutch Cocoa Powder,, sifted
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 3/4 cup (180g) Creamy Peanut Butter
Instructions
- Add the butter, white sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla to a bowl, then beat with a hand mixer until it looks creamy and combined. Add the egg and beat well until it is well-combined with everything else and the batter looks smooth.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, sifted cocoa, and salt, then add this into the batter. Beat until a sticky dough forms. Using your hands, bring together the cookie dough then divide the dough in half. Shape each half into a disc shape. Wraps the discs with plastic wrap, then place into the fridge to chill for 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Prepare 2 to 4 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Remove one dough from the fridge and allow it to sit on the counter for 5 to 10 minutes to warm slightly. Unwrap the dough, and place between two pieces of parchment paper;
- Roll the dough out, between the parchment, to be between 1/8” to 1/4” thick, then using a cookie cutter, cut out the cookies, then transfer them onto the baking sheets (12 per sheet).
- Using a mini heart cookie cutter (or any small cookie cutter), cut out the centre of 1/2 of the cookies. Next, place the cookies into the freezer for 20 minutes.
- Repeat steps on second disc of dough.
- Remove the sheets from the freezer, then bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes, or until they look matte.
- Allow the cookies to cool to room temperature, then spread ½ of the cookies with peanut butter, then sandwich together with another cookie.
