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.
