Picture this: a chocolate cookie that’s fudgy, verging on a brownie, stuffed with juicy, tart raspberry jam and studded with chocolate chips. Let me introduce you to stuffed dark chocolate raspberry cookies.
These stuffed dark chocolate raspberry cookies are an absolute dream. They’re richly chocolatey and fudgy, almost verging on a brownie. And when you bite into them, you get the best surprise of juicy and slightly tart raspberry jam.
This is one of the first recipes that I ever dreamed up (another was a spread made from peanut butter, Nutella and marshmallow fluff when I was 7 years old, but that’s a story for another day). I had the recipe idea in high school when I was lying down after a hot yoga class, which is honestly the equivalent of shower thoughts. I was craving something juicy and hydrating, but also rich and chocolatey – and the idea for these stuffed dark chocolate raspberry cookies was born!
The cookie dough is adapted from an Imperial Sugar recipe that I’ve loved for 10 years. We use both melted chocolate and Dutch process cocoa powder to get a cookie so fudgy it almost verges on a brownie. These stuffed dark chocolate raspberry cookies will give you the most drool-worthy, cravable cookie for Valentine’s Day or really any time of year.
These are stuffed dark chocolate raspberry cookies.
Stuffed Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cookies
Ingredients
- Raspberry jam. We use jam in this recipe instead of fresh raspberries or frozen raspberries so that the raspberry oozes beautifully out of the center of the cookie. You can go with any raspberry jam – I love Bonne Maman.
- Quality chocolate bar. This recipe uses both melted chocolate and cocoa powder to really bring in a chocolate flavor. I prefer a slightly 60% cocoa to balance the very dark cocoa powder we use.
- Dutch process cocoa powder OR black cocoa powder. There are more varieties of cocoa powder than you may think. For this recipe, we use Dutch process cocoa powder or black cocoa powder to get a much deeper chocolate flavor. You can get Dutch process cocoa powder on Amazon or at most grocery stores. I especially love Black cocoa powder, which is the darkest variety of cocoa powder and it tastes kind of like Oreos — you can get it on Amazon. If you need to, you can use natural cocoa powder instead.
- Chocolate chips or chocolate chunks. Okay this is our last type of chocolate! We fold chocolate chips into the dough so that we get cookies filled with gorgeous, drippy chocolate. I like a semi-sweet chocolate, milk chocolate or even white chocolate chips to balance the dark Dutch process cocoa powder.
- All-purpose flour. All-purpose flour brings the cookie together and is the right type of flour to make these cookies perfectly tender.
- Baking powder. We use baking powder as the leavener here to give the cookies a little lift.
- Kosher salt or another coarse salt. If you only have fine table salt, you can reduce the salt in the recipe to scant 1/2 teaspoon.
- Unsalted butter. We cream together room temperature butter with sugar to give the dough a little air that helps lift the cookies in the oven. If you only have salted butter, you can omit the salt in the recipe or check how much salt is in that brand of butter and adjust accordingly.
- Granulated sugar. Granulated sugar sweetens the raspberry chocolate chip cookies and when creamed with the butter, it helps the cookies rise. It also gives us the crinkly top on the cookies!
- Eggs. Eggs help the cookies rise and stay nice and tender.
- Vanilla extract. Vanilla adds great flavor here. Opt for real pure vanilla extract if you’re able.
- Powdered sugar. This is optional, but you can sprinkle some powdered sugar over the cookies once they’ve cooled to get a bakery vibe.
How to make stuffed dark chocolate raspberry cookies
1. First, you’ll spread your jam into a thin layer on a parchment paper lined rimmed baking sheet and place it in the freezer. Freezing the jam makes it easier to work with when we’re stuffing!
2. Next, you’ll melt the chocolate. You can do this either in 30-second bursts in the microwave or on SUPER low heat on the stovetop, stirring constantly so the chocolate doesn’t burn. I used to use a double boiler to melt chocolate TBH you don’t need it! One crucial thing to keep in mind when melting chocolate is you can’t get ANY liquid in it or it will seize up and become crumbly. So as tempting as it is, no licking the spoon and sticking it back in the chocolate!
3. While the melted chocolate cools slightly, you’ll whisk together all your dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Then in a separate large bowl with a hand mixer or stand mixer, you’ll cream together your butter and sugar until it’s fluffy and lighter in color. Mix in that gorgeous melted chocolate, and then the eggs and vanilla. Fold in the dry ingredients and then the chocolate chips.
4. You’ll chill the dough in the fridge for 45-60 minutes. Assemble the cookies by scooping up 3-tablespoon balls of dough (this is the right size cookie scoop) and pressing a shallow well in the middle. Add one spoonful of jam into the well, then press the other ball of dough on top. Seal it all around and smoosh it slightly so it’s one big ball of dough.
5. Bake for 14-15 minutes, until the edges of the cookies are set and the middle is set but still slightly glossy. They’ll look a little underbaked, but they’ll finish baking outside of the oven and turn out nice and fudgy. Let cool, top with powdered sugar if using, and enjoy! Store in an airtight container for 3 days, or the fridge for a week.
Tips for the best raspberry chocolate chip cookies
- Don’t lick the chocolate while it’s melting! Any liquid will make chocolate seize up and turn crumbly while it’s melting. Don’t lick the spoon (I know this from personal experience) and don’t get water in the bowl/pan.
- Use Dutch process cocoa powder. Dutch process cocoa powder takes these chocolate raspberry cookies from wow to WOW. You can get Dutch process cocoa powder on Amazon or at most grocery stores. I especially love Black cocoa powder, which is the darkest variety of cocoa powder and it tastes kind of like Oreos — you can get it on Amazon.
- Properly measure your flour. Too much flour in cookies can make them puffy and soft instead of chewy. And too little flour won’t give them enough structure to hold themselves up!
- Meaure by weight: I always use a kitchen scale to measure my ingredients and include the measurements in grams in the recipe so you can, too. You can get a pretty cheap scale on Amazon (I used a $12 scale for years and now use a $28 KitchenAid scale).
- Measure by volume: If you’re using a cup measure instead of a scale, first fluff the flour in its bag, then use a spoon to place it into your measuring cup. Level the flour off by scraping the flat edge of a knife across the top of the cup measure.
- Let the dough chill. This dough needs to chill for 45-60 minutes before you bake it, otherwise the cookies will spread too much in the oven. And keep the dough in the fridge while each batch is in the oven, so that it doesn’t warm up too much.
- You can chill the dough for longer than an hour, but you might need to let it warm slightly before you can scoop the dough, since the melted chocolate in the dough will harden when it’s in the fridge for a while.
- Slightly underbake the cookies. You want to underbake these cookies slightly so that they stay nice and fudgy instead of dry. The edges should be set, and the top should look a little glossy but not totally underbaked. When in doubt, bake a couple cookies as a test batch, let cool completely, and then taste them. Now you’ll know exactly what to look for when pulling from the oven.
- Use the circle method to get perfectly round cookies. Have y’all seen this one on TikTok? It’s genius. First grab a deli container or anything else circular that has a larger diameter than your cookie. Right when you take your cookies out of the oven, put the deli container top down on each cookie and make fast circles. Since the cookies are still hot and un-set, the centrifugal force (fancy term that means spinning motion) will mold the cookies right into a circle.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Dutch process cocoa powder has been treated to remove its acidity, which gives it a more pronounced chocolate flavor. Alternately, natural cocoa powder still has its acidity and has a less robust chocolate flavor.
Unless the recipe specifies, usually when a recipe calls for cocoa powder, it means natural cocoa powder. You can use the cocoa powders interchangeably in a recipe that uses baking powder as the leavener, since the baking powder doesn’t interact with acid ingredients. You CANNOT use them interchangeably in a recipe with baking soda, because baking soda relies on acidic ingredients to activate and lift a baked good, so it may really need the natural cocoa powder.
Black cocoa powder is the darkest form of Dutch process cocoa powder. It has the darkest color of any cocoa powder and a very deep, chocolate flavor. It actually tastes a bit like Oreos!
Yes! You can leave the dough in the fridge for up to 24 hours. You might need to let it warm slightly before you can scoop the dough, since the melted chocolate in the dough will harden in the fridge.
Yes! It’s best to stuff the cookies with jam before freezing, so they’re ready to pop in the oven right away. If you’re baking the cookies straight from the freezer, add a couple extra mintues to the baking time.
More delicious recipes
- If you are addicted to chocolate, try the best salty, fudgy brownies, chocolate orange tart, or single-serve raspberry filled brownie skillet.
- If you’re looking for more cookie recipes, check out salted brown butter chocolate chip cookies, brown butter sugar cookies, or deep-dish Nutella-stuffed skillet cookie.
If you make these stuffed dark chocolate raspberry cookies, please leave a rating and review below. Follow along and for new recipes on Instagram or TikTok at @loaves.and.such! Happy baking, friends!
Kim says
These were amazing! They were so rich, deep chocolate flavored and just plain delicious. They were very messy to make, but well worth the effort. The only change I made was to add chocolate chunks on the top after baking.
Maddie | loaves & such says
Hi Kim, thank you for sharing! That’s SO great to hear – they are definition messy but worth it 🙂