Peanut Butter Blossoms

Yes, another chocolate recipe!  These cookies are a classic favorite of mine.  As a child I used to wonder how they were able to get the chocolate kisses on the cookies without them melting off in the oven!  Of course, now I know that the kisses are actually placed on top after baking — go figure!

I had a little trouble finding the recipe for these cookies as I didn’t exactly know what they were called.  At first I thought it was a basic thumbprint cookie recipe but I remembered a distinct peanut buttery flavor to them and common sense eventually led me to digging around Hershey’s website for this recipe.

The combination of peanut butter and chocolate is yet another wonderful combination.  Just like coffee, the peanut butter contrasts with the chocolate, in this case dark chocolate, to bring out a salty and sweet flavor.  The cookies themselves have a nice light crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth texture.  So simple to make, yet they look so elegant and professional!

Peanut Butter Blossoms

Peanut Butter Blossoms, from Hershey’s Kitchen

Ingredients

48 Hershey’s Kisses
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and a 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Granulated sugar

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Remove wrappers from chocolates.

2. Beat butter and peanut butter in a large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate into center of each cookie; cookie will crack around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. About 4 dozen cookies.

Notes

The original recipe calls for shortening instead of butter but as I’m not a huge fan of shortening I made the substitution and the cookies turned out fine.  The ratio for substitution is one to one with butter and shortening.  I also let the cookie dough chill for a couple of hours in the refrigerator before baking.  The dough will be a bit crumbly but manageable while shaping, so be delicate!

I also used Hershey’s dark chocolate kisses instead of the milk chocolate just because I like the taste of dark chocolate over milk.  I also think that this prevents the cookies from being overly sweet and sugary.  Furthermore, I didn’t roll the cookie dough in granulated sugar.  It didn’t seem very necessary as the cookies are sweet enough; without the sugar dusting, the peanut butter and dark chocolate flavors stand out more.

These cookies are best eaten while still warm as the chocolate kisses will seem to suddenly melt in your mouth even though they maintain their shape on the cookies.  If you don’t like the peak of the kiss, you can easily press it down after letting the kiss sit on the cookie for a few minutes after they’re removed form the oven.  As the heat of the cookie softens the chocolate, this creates a rich pool of chocolate in the center rather than peaks.

I think next time I might just make indentations in the cookies and fill them with jam instead of a kiss for a peanut butter and jelly cookie!  Similar to a thumprint cookie only not with shortbread.  If anyone wants to try this out before I do, let me know how it goes!