Chewy Peanut-Butter Blossoms
You might think that just because I've already made buckeyes and peanut butter magic cookie bars this Christmas season that I'm done with the peanut-butter-and-chocolate combination. You'd be wrong, of course, but I couldn't judge you for assuming. I fully acknowledge how ridiculous it is that I make so many cookies with this flavor combination. You want to know the real kicker? This isn't even all of them. This year, I even left out one of my favorite Christmas cookies, because – you guessed it – it would have brought my total to 4 types of treats with the same flavor profile. The madness does have a limit after all.
Peanut butter blossoms are basically an American classic when it comes to cookies, and they're one of my husband's all-time favorites. My (er, my mother's) standard peanut butter cookie recipe is literally perfect, so I just use that as my base recipe and stick a Hershey's kiss in each cookie when they leave the oven! Here's a quick link to the peanut-butter cookie recipe I use – I posted it earlier this year. To summarize, these cookies are chewy and pillowy all in one, which in this recipe is especially useful because as you bite into the cookie, it doesn't crumble around the chocolate kiss!
To make these more festive – and since I had red and green sugar on hand already – I decided to roll them in colored sugar instead of normal white sugar, and I think it added a nice touch! I actually mixed the colored sugar with regular white sugar to make sure I didn't get that food-coloring taste that you can get if you go too hard with the artificial colors. But truthfully, these will probably be eaten too quickly for many people to notice if you used colored sugar or not. Three to four dozen cookies only sounds like a lot.
Next week, I'll be doing a re-post of an older recipe and taking the week off, so now's the time for me to wish a Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah to all of my readers who have made it this far! I hope you all have had a joyous holiday season and that it continues into the new year.
CHEWY PEANUT-BUTTER BLOSSOMS
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Bake Time: 8 minutes
Ingredients
14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
3/4 - 1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 egg
1 t vanilla
2 c Bisquick
1/3 cup granulated sugar, colored or plain
~48 Hershey's kisses
Directions
Using a hand mixer, beat sweetened condensed milk, peanut butter, egg and vanilla in large bowl until smooth. Add bisquick, and mix well. Cover and chill at least 1 hour. The dough may seem a little fluffy, which is fine.
Heat oven to 350 F. Place your sugar in a shallow bowl or on a plate – you will roll the dough in this before baking! You can use colored sugar if you want to add a festive flair. Remove the dough from the fridge and shape into 1-inch balls. Roll the balls in sugar, and place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. No need to grease the sheets, and it's helpful to use sheets that have a lip. Very gently, press down a little on each ball so that it flattens out the top.
Bake for around 7-9 minutes, or until ever-so-barely-lightly browned around the very bottom of the cookie. They won't look done, but they will be. Try to not overbake these as that will ruin their pillowy consistency! As they're baking, you should be unwrapping your Hershey's kisses.
As soon as they come out of the oven, place an unwrapped Hershey's kiss in the middle of each cookie, and press it down so that it's firmly in the dough. Otherwise, the kisses will fall out of the cookies once they're cooler.
This makes about 3-4 dozen cookies!
Happy Eating,
Natalie