Peanut Butter Blossoms

One of the recurring themes here is that I sometimes like to make things where the ingredients do a lot of the work. Things taste great, but others have already created some of that taste for you.

For instance, I often use Oreos as an ingredient – they’re especially awesome for a chocolate crust. They have a unique taste that doesn’t overwhelm the overall dish, but does taste terrific.

For these, I’m not using Oreos, but Hershey Kisses. Unlike with the Oreos, these aren’t “hidden” or crushed into some other form. They’re honestly just plopped right on top of the peanut butter cookie, and who doesn’t like the combination of peanut butter and chocolate????

Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

· 32 Hershey Kisses (unwrapped, obviously)

· ½ cup butter, softened to room temperature

· 2/3 cup peanut butter (I used creamy)

· 2/3 cup sugar, divided

· ½ cup dark brown sugar

· 1 egg, brought to room temperature

· 2 T milk

· 2 t vanilla

· 1 ¾ cups flour

· 1/3 cup cocktail peanuts

· 1 t baking soda

· ½ t salt

Directions

First off, unwrap the Hershey Kisses. This is by far the most tedious of the tasks you’re going to need to do, so if you have unpaid labor (translation: children) to help you, this would be a place where they would be really helpful.

Put the butter, peanut butter, 1/3 cup of the sugar and all the brown sugar into a bowl and mix with your hand mixer until it’s fluffy. Next, add in the egg, milk and vanilla and mix again until everything is well combined.

In a separate bowl whisk together the dry ingredients – the flour, peanuts, baking soda and salt. Take the dry ingredients and add about half to the first bowl, mix until well combined, and then add the rest of the dry ingredients and do the same.

Put the remaining 1/3 cup sugar into a small bowl. Roll the dough into balls about an inch across and then roll each ball in the sugar so that they’re covered.

Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes, or until the cookies start to get a nice golden brown. As soon as you take them out of the oven (while they’re still very soft), press a Kiss into the middle of each cookie and then put the sheet back into the oven for about a minute. Then, take them out and let them sit on the sheet for a minute or two so that they set, then move them to a wire rack to cool completely.