Peanut Butter Kisses

This cookie seems to really appeal to the imagination, a whole piece of candy nestled in a cookie! This recipe is from the King Arthur Cookie Companion, a great book if you like to bake cookies. My kids love that there are several special jobs for them in this recipe. . . there's peeling the kisses (and eating a few), there's rolling the cookies in sugar and then there's placing the kisses smack in the center of the warm cookie without burning yourself, oh what fun.

Peanut Buttter Kisses

1 stick butter

3/4 c. creamy peanut butter (that's around 7 ounces if you like to weigh)

1/3 c. white sugar

1/3 c. brown sugar

1 large egg

2 Tbsp milk

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 c. ap flour

48 chocolate kisses

Preheat oven to 375.

Cream the peanut butter, butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg, milk, baking soda, salt and vanilla. Gradually add the flour.

Shape into 1 inch balls ( I must have messed this up because I did not get 48 cookies and my kids and husband had to eat the remaining kisses)

Roll in white sugar.  Bake for 10 minutes until light brown.  Put a kiss in the center of each hot cookie, cool completely.

Toffee Squares

 

My kids, who claim not to like nuts can polish off a whole tray of these when I'm not looking. . . they remind me of a really great heath bar that won't break your teeth.

1/2 c. walnut halves

1 c. butter, softened

1 c. firmly packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. salt

2 c. ap flour

1 cup chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 350. Spread the walnuts on a 15x10x1 inch jellyroll pan. (I have one I use only for this recipe. . . I hope yours is not an "airbake" like mine, I hate those things nothing ever browns properly in them) Toast the nuts for about 10 min. Cool them and chop them.

In a mixer bowl cream the butter and the sugar, add the salt, vanilla and egg. Stir in the flour. Rub the butter wrappers on the pan to lightly greas it. Spread the batter in the pan. This will be a little harder than it sounds, just push it all in there with nice clean hands, the palm prints will go away while it bakes. Bake it for about 21 min. Sprinkle the chips on and bake another 5 minutes, spread the melted chocolate over the entire surface, then sprinkle on the nuts. Cool completely and cut (use a pizza wheel, it will be much easier) into diamonds.

Pecan Tassies

This is the kind of cookie I've never made, but the first one I'd go for on a cookie platter (or the big boxes of homemade cookies that used to arrive at our house from my mother's home state of Ohio around the holidays). I saw this recipe and had to try it, I tweaked it a bit. . . and it turned out quite well.

1/2 c. cream cheese (little more than half an 8 oz. package) at room temperature.

1 stick butter at room temperature.

1 cup ap flour

1/4 tsp. salt.

1 1/4 toasted, chopped pecans

3/4 c. brown sugar

1 tablespoon melted butter

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla.

a pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 325. Spritz a 24 cup mini muffin tin with spray.

Mix the butter, cream cheese, salt and flour together in a bowl. Press a good tablespoon into each mini muffin well, push it up to make a little shell.

Mix the pecans sugar, butter, egg vanilla and salt together.

Dollop a bit into the wells. Don't overfill or itbecomes very difficult to get them out and you will have to eat the ruined ones!

Bake 12 min or longer until the shells are slightly browned. Cool completely and remove.

Krinkle Klause

My children have dubbed these "Krinkle Klause" although the real name is the very cumbersome "Kris Kringle's Chocolate Krinkles." I"m pretty sure they just can't remember it. These come from DeDe Wilson's christmas cookie field guide. We double the recipe every year, because although it claims to make 80 cookies it really only makes 40.

Ingredients

5 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1 stick butter

2 c. a.p. flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

4 large eggs

2 c. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

confectioners sugar.

1) Melt the chocolate and butter together over boiling water in a metal bowl (or whatever way you want to really). Remove from heat and stir until completely smooth.

2) Mix up the dry ingredients in a bowl.

3) In the bowl of an electric mixer beat the eggs and sugar and vanilla for about 2 minutes, until they're creamy.

4) Whisk in the chocolate/butter.

5) Mix in the dry.

the batter will be thinnish, but that's o.k. because you're going to refrigerate it - 6 hours or overnight.

6) Preheat oven to 350.

Put some confectioners sugar into a bowl, roll the dough into 1" balls and roll them (or have your kitchen helpers roll them. . . messy but fun) in the sugar. You want a thick coating. Place them 2" apart on a sheet and bake about 11-12 min. they'll be puffed and crackled.

these keep pretty well if you can hide them.