Peanut butter Rolo cookies taste like the Christmases you remember, when the kitchen was warm, the Christmas cookies were piled high, and somebody was always sneaking candy before it made it into the dough. They're thick and chewy with a gooey chocolate-caramel center that stays soft long enough to make eating one straight from the oven dangerously tempting. Consider this your warning: molten caramel has no respect for Christmas spirit or the roof of your mouth.
Table of Contents
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🥰 Is this recipe for you?
- You love thick, chewy peanut butter cookies but also gooey chocolate and caramel candies.
- You want an easy Christmas cookie that looks festive without requiring a degree in decorative arts.
- You need cookies that freeze well for getting a head start on holiday baking.
- You believe hiding candy inside cookies is not excessive but simply a perfect example of multi-tasking at its best.
🧾 Ingredients
Simple ingredients, serious cookie payoff. You probably have most of what you need in the pantry already, which means the only real challenge is keeping everyone out of the Rolos until they make it into the cookies.
- All-purpose flour - Gives these cookies enough structure to keep that molten little Rolo situation safely contained.
- Baking soda - Just enough lift to keep the cookies thick and chewy.
- Granulated sugar - Adds sweetness and helps create those lightly crisp edges.
- Brown sugar - Keeps the centers soft, chewy, and gloriously not cakey.
- Creamy peanut butter - Regular creamy peanut butter works best here. Save the natural stuff for something where it can't cause trouble.
- Butter - For richness, flavor, and all the usual buttery reasons.
- Eggs - Hold everything together because somebody around here has to.
- Vanilla extract - Rounds out the peanut butter, chocolate, and caramel flavors.
- Rolo candies - The gooey chocolate-caramel center and the entire reason we're gathered here today.
- Colored sugar - Adds a little sparkle and crunch. Use red and green for Christmas, or whatever colors suit the occasion.
These Rolo stuffed cookies ship really well, too.
📖 Recipe
Peanut Butter Rolo Cookies
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- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup peanut butter, smooth
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 ¼ cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 48 Rolo candies, unwrapped
- sugar, or colored sugar, or sprinkles; for rolling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with silicone baking mat or parchment.
- Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars in the mixer until well blended. It will look grainy at first but keep beating and stop every few seconds to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Continue beating until it's a smooth mass.
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
- Beat in vanilla.
- Stir in flour and baking soda.
- Using a well rounded teaspoon of the dough wrap it around a Rolo candy, encasing it completely.
- Roll in colored sugar. Don't flatten! Place on baking sheets.
- Bake 8 to 9 minutes.
- Cool. Cookies will flatten out a little as they cool.
Notes
- The cookies will look slightly underbaked when they're done. They'll firm up as they cool.
- Be careful biting into a still-warm cookie! The caramel can be super hot.
- Be sure to cover the Rolo candy completely with dough so that it's sealed in or the caramel will leak out of the cookie.
- I like to use parchment paper for these so if there does happen to be some caramel leakage it's easy to clean up.
Nutrition Facts
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
This recipe has been tested several times. If you choose to use other ingredients, or change the technique in some way, the results may not be the same.
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🔪 How to make peanut butter Rolo cookies
These peanut butter Rolo cookies are ridiculously easy to make, no chilling or other cookie-related nonsense required. Just mix, stuff, roll, and bake, while trying not to eat your way through the Rolos before they make it into the dough.
- Mix the butter, peanut butter, and sugars until well blended, then beat in the eggs and vanilla.
- Stir in the all-purpose flour and baking soda until you've got a thick, soft cookie dough.
- Wrap the dough completely around an unwrapped Rolo candy. No caramel peeking out. It will escape. It has no loyalty.
- Roll in colored sugar, then bake until the edges are set and the centers are still soft.
😱 What can go wrong (and how to fix it)
🍪 The caramel leaked everywhere. The Rolo wasn't completely covered with dough. Seal it up like it knows family secrets.
🍪 The cookies look underbaked. Good. They're supposed to look a little soft when they come out of the oven. They'll finish setting as they cool.
🍪 The cookies spread too much. Make sure your butter isn't overly soft or partially melted, and never put cookie dough on a hot baking sheet.
🍪 The caramel is approximately the temperature of the sun. Give the cookies a few minutes to cool before biting into one. Ask me how I know.
🍪 The Rolo center isn't gooey anymore. Pop the cookie in the microwave for just a few seconds and that chocolate-caramel center will get gloriously soft again.
📚 More holiday cookie recipes
🏡 Although these cookies are good warm or cooled off, there was some debate at our house about the exact perfect temperature.
One of my children liked them really warm (be careful, the insides are hot) so that the caramel and chocolate are a liquid and drip out with every bite. Another thinks they are perfect at warm but not hot so that the caramel is gooey, and another liked them cold so that the caramel and chocolate are more solid.
The texture and flavor change as these cookies cool, so obviously you're forced to try one at every temperature. Forced, I'm telling ya.
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