Tag-Archive for ◊ hugs ◊

27 Oct 2010 Fun Face Cookie-Pops

Is it a cookie?  Is it a lollipop?  It’s a Fun Face Cookie Pop!  My kids  loved these, both making them and eating them.  We’ve been making these candy studded spice cookie pops  every Fall  since 1998 (unfortunately I don’t remember where I originally found the recipe). One of the great things about this cookie is the kids see this as a lollipop.  Get it?  If it’s a cookie, they want two or three.  If it’s a lollipop, they think one is enough! (and with all the candy on each pop/cookie, one is enough). Make these with your kids for a Halloween party (I’ve served several consecutive life sentences as a Room Mother and often took these as treats for a party) or make them after Halloween with some of their Halloween candy.  Fun Face Cookie-pops are a great lunch box treat for that week after Halloween!

A few hints about this recipe. One, the dough is extremely soft, so be sure to allow enough time, at least an hour and up to overnight, for the dough to chill in the refrigerator. Two, the cookies spread a lot, so leave enough space between each pop on the cookie sheet (as you can see by some of the pictures, I did not leave enough space).  Three, be sure to bake the cookies long enough.  If you don’t the cookie will be too soft and will drop off the popsicle stick.  Four, M&Ms, chocolate chips (and butterscotch, peanut butter, and cinnamon chips, too–vanilla chips brown unattractively), sprinkles and colored sugars are the most versatile candies for this project.  Rolos, Hugs, Kisses and mini Reeses Peanut Butter Cups are a bit big but super yummy on the cookie.  I have used candy corn to decorate these cookies, and it often melts into the cookie. Oh, and Five! Popsicle sticks are available at Michael’s or any another craft supply store. Be forewarned though! They don’t sell SMALL boxes!  One purchase will equal a life-time supply and only set you back about three dollars 🙂

Have FUN with this recipe,  it’s a GREAT kid-grownup cooking project!

Polly’s Fun Face Cookie Pops

½ cup butter
½ cupsugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour

Beat butter for 30 seconds.  Add in sugar and spices.  Beat in molasses, baking soda and egg.  Stir in flour.

Refrigerate dough for at least an hour, up to overnight.

Divide dough into 16 equal pieces, about 1 oz. each.

Roll each piece of dough into a ball.  Stick a popsicle stick into the middle of each ball.  Flatten each ball with the palm of your hand.

Decorate cookies, making faces, with m&ms, nuts, chips, sprinkles, colored sugars, Rolos, Hersheys Hugs or Kisses, mini Reeses peanut butter cups, etc.

Bake in preheated 350º oven for 12-13 minutes.

Let cookies cool on tray for 2 minutes then remove to rack to cool completely.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today.  Here’s a picture of my Grandson, Zade, decorating his first Fun Face Cookie Pops on his second birthday!  He ate the peanut butter cups, and some of the M&M’s, and his Mom did the decorating.  He is not, alas, a cookie decorating genius just yet!


08 Jul 2010 Peanut Butter Blossoms (Kisses)
 |  Category: Cookies & Bars, Sweets  | Tags: , , ,  | One Comment

Abby is the cookie baker in our family, and she’s terrific at it. Each cookie has a perfect shape. Each batch is a uniform size. She even counts the M&Ms and the chocolate chips to make sure each cookie, NO!-each BITE of each cookie-has the perfect number of candy morsels. The cookie recipe that made her famous? This one, one of the Classic American Cookies, Peanut Butter Blossoms (sometimes called Peanut Butter Kisses). Abby dressed this batch up for July 4th, but usually the dough is rolled in plain white sugar. Abby prefers to use Hugs, over Kisses, in the middle, which is a personal preference thing. For some odd reason, the recipe Abby first used had her turn the Kisses/Hugs upside down (which we have never seen done anywhere else). I LOVE the upside-down component. It makes me laugh, so she makes one tray upside down for me when she bakes. Unfortunately, she mastered this cookie when she was in 5th grade, and the kids laughed at her for the upside down hugs/kisses-not in the way I laughed-so now she puts the Hug/Kiss in the cookie right side up if it’s made to leave the house! You can find versions of this recipe anywhere and everywhere, this is the recipe Abby uses. It makes about 48 cookies. The photo below is of leftover, well traveled cookies. (I forgot to take a picture of the fresh, perfect, right-side up Peanut Butter Blossoms.)

Peanut Butter Blossoms (Kisses)

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened (but not runny)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (Abby is a Skippy girl!)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
extra granulated sugar (to roll the dough in)
about 48 Hershey Hugs or Kisses, unwrapped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl to combine and to aerate, set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter until light and fluffy (3-5 minutes) then beat in the peanut butter and the white and brown sugars. Beat in the egg and the vanilla extract. Gradually stir in the blended dry ingredients. Pinch off walnut sized pieces of the dough and roll into balls (you should have about 48 balls). Roll the balls in granulated sugar and place 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes, or until cookie just begins to color. Remove tray from oven and press an unwrapped Hug or Kiss into the middle of each cookie (right side up or upside down). Return the tray to the oven and cook for an additional 3 minutes. Remove from oven. Let cool on tray for a minute then remove cookies to a wire rack to cool.