For those of us who shouldn’t eat candy for health reasons (and isn’t that most of us?), these cookies help fulfill the craving for chocolate-covered peanut butter cups. To take them over the top, drizzle Chocolate Glaze over the baked and cooled cookies. We call for baking the cookies in muffin cups, but you could also use a 12-compartment mini loaf pan. For sugar-free chocolate syrup, Denene uses the Publix store brand because it has the fewest carbs. Hershey’s and Smucker’s also make sugar-free chocolate syrup, but the carbs are slightly higher. Look over the options at your market and get the one with the lowest total amount of carbs.
Chocolate Filling
- 1 cup (8.75 oz / 248 g) sugar-free chocolate syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon liquid stevia
- 1 envelope (0.25 oz / 7 g) unflavored powdered gelatin, or 1 teaspoon agar flakes
How to Make It
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C). Mist 12 muffin cups with spray oil. Have the cookie dough ready.
- To make the filling, whisk the syrup, vanilla, liquid stevia, and gelatin together in a medium bowl until thoroughly blended. Let the mixture sit for 3 to 5 minutes to allow the gelatin to expand and bloom. Whisk the mixture periodically as you fill the cookies to keep the gelatin evenly distributed.
- Put 1 heaping tablespoon of the cookie dough into each prepared muffin cup. Oil your fingers and press the dough into the walls of the cup to form a ¼-inch-thick crust, just like a mini pie shell. Use only as much dough as needed to make a thin crust; the remaining dough will be used in a subsequent step.
- Spoon the chocolate mixture into the muffin cups, dividing it evenly among them.
- Mist a work surface with spray oil and transfer the remaining cookie dough to the oiled spot. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions. Oil your hands and roll each portion into a ball. Set the balls on the oiled work surface and press them with the palm of your hand until large enough to cover the cookie crusts. Set the disks atop the chocolate and crimp the edges of the top and bottom cookie crusts together to completely encase the chocolate centers.
- Bake for 15 minutes, then rotate and bake for about 15 more minutes, until the top crust is golden and firm to the touch. Don’t worry if some of the chocolate centers ooze out during the baking process. The chocolate can easily be scraped off the pan (and eaten, of course!) once the cookies are baked.
- Put the pan on a wire rack and let the cookies cool for at least 20 minutes, until completely cool before turning them out.