Do you like surprises?
That could go either way for me depending on the situation and circumstances.
Good Surprise: Finding an excuse to create a new cookie recipe.
Good surprise: Oh! Nuts allowing me to select something from their vast online store to use for my holiday baking.
Good surprise: I selected dark chocolate covered strawberries and stuffed them into these cookies and biting into them is a surprise party for your taste buds.
The proverbial expression, “Like a kid in a candy store” literally described me as I was browsing over the thousands of items they carry and trying to decide what to order.
These chocolate covered strawberries sounded too good to pass up and I’m glad I chose them.
These resulting cookies are very dark chocolatey. They’re the cookie equivalent of a really dark rich brownie.
Not overly sweet and full of rich, dark, intense chocolate flavor.
The cookies are very soft and chewy, too, and not dry in the least.
They’re everything I want in a double chocolate cookie with the added surprise of chocolate covered strawberries.
It’s not essential that you have chocolate covered strawberries to stuff in these cookies, but it sure makes for a nice surprise if you do.
Or check out Oh! Nuts’ other chocolate-covered dried fruit such as pineapple, cherries, apricots, blueberries. I could have a major field day shopping.
But for now, the field day is right here with one of these.
[print_this]
Stuffed Dark Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Cookies with Chocolate Covered Strawberries (with Vegan & Gluten Free options)
(Note: Stuffing them is optional and what you stuff them with is up to you. The recipe can be made without stuffing them)
1/2 c butter, softened
1/3 c brown sugar
1/4 c white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 /2 tsp baking soda
1/4 c cocoa powder
1 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1/3 c + chocolate chips (I used TJ’s dark chocolate chips; if you are not stuffing them with anything, you may want to increase this amount to 1/2 c or 2/3 c, or more as desired)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325F. In a large mixing bowl combine room-temperature softened butter and sugars and whip by hand (or do it in a mixer but I did it by hand). Add the vanilla extract, egg, baking soda, and cocoa powder and stir to combine. Then add the flour, slowly, and stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.
I suggest putting the mixing bowl in the freezer for 10 minutes and chilling the dough before scooping onto cookie sheets.
After 10 minutes or so, scoop the chilled dough onto Silpat-lined, parchment-lined, or sprayed cookie sheets in 1 inch balls, about 2 inches apart. I highly recommend this cookie scoop. It has changed the results of my baking dramatically. Available at Bed Bath & Beyond for about $4 bucks.
After you have scooped out the cookie dough balls, stuff them with the chocolate-covered strawberries. I lightly nestled 1 chocolate covered strawberry into each cookie and on some cookies I folded the dough over and made a complete “seal” and on others, I left them partially “open” so that you could see a glimpse of the chocolate-covered strawberry peeking out. Your choice.
Bake at 325F for 9 to 11 minutes. Remove from oven even if they look a bit underdone as they will firm up. Allow the cookies to cool well on the cookie sheets before attempting to remove them.
Yields: 19 small/medium cookies using my 1 inch cookie scoop. Or, I would expect to yield about one dozen larger sized cookies.
Optional:
In addition to not “having to” stuff with anything, you could stuff them with just about anything that strikes your fancy or you have on hand, i.e. Snickers Bar Stuffed Cookies, stuff with leftover Halloween candy, chocolate-covered cherries, a dollop of cream cheese, a few pieces of dried fruit like raisins, dates, or mango, almonds, walnuts, peanuts, cashews, marshmalllows, etc.
Add more than 1/3 c of chocolate chips or use other kinds of chips such as peanut butter, toffee bits, or white chocolate chips.
To make the cookies even darker and richer in chocolate flavor, increase the cocoa powder from 1/4 c to 1/3 c and reduce the flour by a few tablespoons.
To make gluten free, use a gluten free flour blend.
To make vegan, use margarine or Earth Balance in place of the butter and use 1 chia/flax egg instead of the egg.
[/print_this]
These were definitely a good surprise.
The cookies remind me quite a bit of the Flourless Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies I’ve made in the past, but today’s recipe has no peanut butter.
And there’s something about how dark and rich the stuffed cookies are that makes me think of Fudgy Nutella Brownies with Cream Cheese Frosting which are the richest, moistest, and most decadent brownies I have ever eaten and I’m a tough critic.
I going to make these for holiday parties because I think they’re unique and different and I can’t wait to see the expression on people’s faces when they bite into the surprise.
It was great watching Scott and Skylar’s expression as they ate these. Skylar asked me, “Mommy what is this little ball in the cookies?” and I tried to explain the concept of chocolate-covered dried fruit to a four year old.
She nodded and just kept chewing her cookie and with her chocolate stained face said, “Mommy, I really like these little balls inside your cookies”.
Good Surprise: Cooking and baking for my family and seeing their joy when they like something makes me really happy.
I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving week with lots of good surprises and happy times with your friends and loved ones.
And hopefully there’s cookies involved.
Questions:
1. Are you a chocolate fan?
If you say no, I don’t fully understand you. But I know some people are just meh about chocolate. My mother is actually one of those people. She’d rather have banana bread than chocolate cake or would rather have a piece of apple pie than a chocolate cookie.
For me, I love desserts of all kinds but chocolate is very near and dear to my heart. Check out my Chocolate Recipes category if you need proof.
2. Have you ever had chocolate covered strawberries, cherries, or any other chocolate-covered items?
Chocolate Covered Oreo Bites and No Bake Vanilla Cake Batter Chocolate Truffles come to mind for me.
And so do memories of chocolate-covered cherries from Russel Stover’s candy boxes on many Valentine’s Days in years past. I actually don’t like them that much but my dad loves those things. Something about the gooey “juice” inside them I am not crazy about. I’d rather have a cookie.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving Week!
I don’t understand people who don’t like chocolate, either…it makes me wonder how else their perception of the world differs from mine and makes me suspicious – how can you not love chocolate?!?
Those cookies look deleecious – that is a surprise I can definitely get down with! :)
thanks!
Girl, you are after my heart with these cookies. They look fabulous! I live for chocolate and LOVE chocolate covered anything (within reason…no craziness like insects or anything gross).
One of my favorite chocolate covered desserts is figs and/or dates. But yeah, most of the time I’d rather have a cookie. ;-)
LOL. We’re not on Survivor with our desserts now are we :)
LOL, kinda dramatic, right? Speaking of which, I often pose the “chocolate or alcohol” question to friends, as in, if you had to give up on or the other for LIFE, which would it be. I, of course, would give alcohol the boot. Chocolate? Not a chance.
Chocolate covered ginger bites at TJs. Nuff said.
This made me think of you: https://showtellshare.blogspot.com/2011/08/nutella-doughnuts.html
Nice. Love it.
Ive never had the TJs choc covered ginger. Other things but never that. Sometimes eating ginger like that straight up is pretty…intense!
While I’m not a chocolate fan, my sister would probably beat someone up to get her hands on those! And if the GF flour blend works fine, then I have a feeling she’ll be my bestest friend ever if I make these for her (ok, already her BFF, but still….). And LOVE Skylar’s response ;-)
Yes the GF flour is fine! Try it :)
Is it possible to get lactose free-chocolate? I have seen the fondu typed chocolate strawberries, but maybe the strawberries that are completely coated with chocolate are different. Regardless, Trader Joes sells a decent assortment of chocolate covered berries – maybe chunks of strawberries are within them??
Dark chocolate typically doesn’t contain lactose. It’s cocoa powder or cocoa solids. Milk chocolate is another story. The chocolate products I used in this recipe (to my knowledge) to not contain lactose.
You had me at the title on this one. These look so damn good! I love chocolate covered strawberries, cherries, any fruit really. Stuffing them in cookies is pure genius. I might try something like this for Christmas this year. Yum :)
Glad you like the sound of them. Lmk if you end up trying any stuffed cookies.
These cookies look so, so good. I am a die hard chocolate fan. The darker, the better.
I LOVED those Russel Stover’s chocolate covered cherries growing up. I could easily polish off an entire box by myself…and then of course go into a sugar come. It was worth it though. :)
LOL..My dad is that way with those candies. They are too “juicy” for me. Normally I like the gooey factor but not those. Give me frosting instead for gooey factor :)
Chocolate covered strawberries? How fun is that. That website has some of the best products. I like buying bulk nuts and seeds from them! The cookies look fantastic (but your cookies ALWAYS look fantastic). I bet the strawberries are an awesome surprise
These look so tasty! What a great idea. I wonder if i’d be able to find those chocolate covered strawberries somewhere!
Trader Joe’s carries a lot of choc covered dried fruit or check the bulk bins of Whole Foods or other groc stores. And again, not “essential” you stuff the cookies with anything. Just a fun twist.
Oh that’s right! My family used to go to Trader Joe’s all the time when we lived in Massachusetts and I remember getting their chocolate covered strawberries. I loved them! Thanks!
Am I a chocolate fan?!? Is the sky blue?
LOL :)
Ooohh I love this idea!! What a yummy surprise! :D
YUMM! Those look incredible. I love stuffed cookies. Always fun biting into a sweet gooey center. :)
Oh my gosh. You totally outdid yourself here, Averie — these look stunning. I would like about 5 of them to magically appear on my computer desk. I’m obsessed with chocolate — I need to have some 85% or stronger in the house at all times. Trader Joe’s chocolate lover’s chocolate usually. Chocolate covered ginger is a treat I get myself in small quantities — otherwise it somehow disappears…
Thanks, Lauren, for the sweet words :)
I’m actually one of the weirdo’s who doesn’t eat chocolate. It’s not that I don’t like it – it tastes delicious – but it’s not worth the side effects for me. I guess I’m mildly allergic because I get a rash on my face (my dad does too) and have a “lactose-intolerant” kind of gi reaction. I actually thought that it was just the milk chocolate that bothered me but when I tried pure chocolate it was 1000x worse. I don’t know what exactly I’m allergic to but it’s not worth it to me to eat it. I’m pretty obsessed with peanut butter instead!
Oh I am a huge PB fan too. I post all the time about PB but actually didn’t use it in these. But I have a whole compilation of PB recipes :)
https://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2011/02/peanut-butter-recipes.html
I use it in everything!
Oh. My. Goodness. These look fantastic! I didn’t know chocolate covered strawberries existed like that but they sound fantastic stuffed into cookies. Averie, you are making me hungry and I don’t have time to bake right now!
I knew choc covered cherries existed, but not strawberries. I was excited too :)