PEANUT BLOSSOMS

The housekeeper at the Holiday Inn Express, Downtown San Diego, left us 2 bags of Hershey kisses during our recent stay. I brought them home to make cookies, and peanut blossoms were my logical choice. Since I only had 14 kisses and the recipe made 24 cookies, I needed something else for 10 cookies. A half jar of Nutella did the trick. (BTW, have you tasted Nutella? Where are the hazlenuts? All I taste is sugar and chocolate. Frankly, I like chocolate peanut butter better; at least you can taste the peanut butter.) I have to say I was a little disappointed in this recipe. Now, I will admit I tweaked it a bit, switching out the sugar for Stevia, upping the vanilla, and subbing 1 cup of whole wheat flour for part of the all-purpose flour. But still, my two biggest disappointments with this recipe were not getting enough peanut butter flavor in the cookie and biting into a very hard kiss. They're not bad, but for me they are just ok and there are better peanut butter cookie recipes out there. I'm going to assume that they are popular because they look cute on a cookie tray. I would rather eat something that tastes really great, even if it doesn't look spectacular. Here's the recipe for those of you who like cute cookies that taste ok:

Peanut Blossoms
INGREDIENTS: 1/2 cup white sugar (I used 1 Tbsp. Stevia)
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
2 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla (I used 2 tsp.)
1 large egg
1-3/4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour (I used 1 cup whole wheat flour + 3/4 cups all-purpose) 1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. sea salt
extra sugar (about 3 Tbsp.) for rolling

DIRECTIONS: Heat oven to 375F. In large bowl, beat sugar, brown sugar and butter until light and fluffly. Add peanut butter, milk, vanilla and egg; beat well. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. Add flour, baking soda and salt; mix well. Shape dough into 1-inch balls; roll in sugar. Place 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheets; do not flatten. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown and set. Immediately top each cookie with a milk chocolate candy kiss, pressing down firmly so cookie cracks around edges. (First, lightly press the kiss into the cookie top. Do all the cookies, then go back to the first one and press in further. If you just press the kiss in all the way at first, the cookie will split apart.)

For Nutella filling, after you shape dough into 1" balls, roll in sugar and place on cookie sheet. With your thumb, make an indentation in center of cookie. This indentation will partially fill in as cookie bakes. When cookies are done, immediately fill centers with Nutella. (I liked these better than the kiss center, because the Nutella is not hard like the kiss, and so it's much easier to eat.)