Recipes with Julie Van Rosendaal: Stuffed cookies and how to make your own

Stuffed cookies are a thing across Canada, with stores offering up thick, substantial cookies stuffed with peanut butter cups, Oreos, fruit fillings and all kinds of other ingredients.

Good news! They're easier than you might think to make at home.

Most stuffed cookies seem to be based on a brown sugar dough, like a chocolate chip cookie. The key is to make a dough that's thick and similar to cake batter. That way, it doesn't spread as much as other cookies, so the dough encloses your fillings of choice.

We can do this by decreasing the ratio of sugar to flour. A cookie with more butter and sugar relative to the quantity of flour will spread more, so these have less butter and sugar, plus an additional egg, to make a thicker cookie.

There's also a chocolate version, which are fantastic stuffed with a small peppermint patty, but they could also be stuffed with a peanut butter cup, a mini chocolate bar, hazelnut spread, Biscoff and marshmallows or anything else you can dream up.

Classic Stuffed Cookies

Stuff these cookies with anything you like — chocolate, nuts, chopped or mini chocolate bars, Oreos, peanut butter cups, marshmallows — and make sure they are enclosed in the dough before you bake them.

• Bookmark cbc.ca/juliesrecipes to keep up with all of Julie Van Rosendaal's dishes.

Be aware that if you use dry additions, like pretzels or baked cookies, they could draw moisture from the cookie dough.

If you like, dip or drizzle your baked, cooled cookies with melted chocolate, or top with frosting.

Ingredients

• ½ cup butter, softened
• ½ cup packed golden brown sugar
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 cups chocolate chips
• Any stuffing ingredients you like

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars for a minute or two, until lightened.

Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the flour, baking soda and salt and beat on low speed (I use the paddle attachment of my stand mixer) or stir with a spatula just until combined, adding the chocolate chips somewhere along the way.

If you like, cover and refrigerate the dough overnight. This will produce a more even, slightly denser, slightly more complex batter with a slower spread that browns more quickly, or you could bake them right away.

Take a small handful of dough, about 100 grams, and flatten it in your hand. Put any filling ingredients you like in the middle, and then shape the dough around it, pinching it to enclose the ingredients and gently rolling it in your hands to ensure it's smooth and leak-free.

Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing them a couple inches apart.

Bake for about 18 minutes, or until golden and set. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes: About 10 cookies.

Chocolate-mint Stuffed Cookies

These are based on the 'chocolava' cookies I used to sell at my bakery in the 1990s.

Wrap the dough around a small peppermint patty (such as York), or really any small chocolate bar or peanut butter cup, pinch to enclose it and roll in icing sugar to coat.

The cookies will spread slightly and crack on the surface as they bake.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• ½ cup cocoa
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp fine salt
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 8-10 small peppermint patties
• icing sugar, for rolling

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder and salt, breaking up any lumps of brown sugar. Add the butter and stir until the mixture is well blended, with a texture like damp soil (it will seem dry).

In a small bowl, stir the eggs together with a fork and add to the dry ingredients along with the vanilla. Or, sometimes I just make a well in the dry ingredients, crack the eggs in and stir to break up with a fork before incorporating them. 

Stir until you have a sticky dough. It may seem like there's not enough moisture, but trust me, there is. It will come together more easily if you get in there with your hands. You'll need to roll the dough into balls anyway!

LISTEN | Julie Van Rosendaal explains how to make your own stuffed cookies:

Take large pieces of dough and wrap around each peppermint patty, pinching to completely enclose it with dough. Shape into a sort of flat ball.

Put some icing sugar into a shallow dish, and roll the dough in icing sugar to coat, placing a couple inches apart on a parchment-lined sheet.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until crackled and just set around the edges but still soft in the middle.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes: Eight to 10 cookies.