Never mind all the fancy kinds of Christmas cookies with frosting and sprinkles and reindeer faces. Peanut Blossom cookies are everyone’s favorite, in their chocolatey, peanut-y simplicity.
Everybody makes them…but they’re not all the same.
Shortening vs. butter, a little bit more or less flour or sugar, whether or not to add milk – small variations can make a big difference. The recipe I grew up making turns out to be the Land-O-Lakes version – I didn’t know that back then because it was handwritten by my grandmother on a peanut-butter-stained recipe card. It uses equal parts butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar, and makes a Peanut Blossom that’s slightly crispy. I always wished for softer cookies and thought I was doing something wrong. Finally, after years (OK, decades) of following the old recipe, I finally made a few adaptations to arrive at Peanut Blossom perfection: soft and moist, super peanut-buttery, with the perfect ratio of chocolate kiss to cookie.
Let’s break it down:
- Softness. The keys to softness are:
- Weigh your flour – too little flour makes crispy cookies, and too much makes them heavy and doughy. The best way to make sure you’re using the right amount is to use a scale.
- Don’t overmix – once you add the dry ingredients, stir with the mixer on its lowest speed for just a few turns until the dough comes together.
- Add a splash of milk – one tablespoon is all it takes.
- Chill the dough, for cookies that bake up puffy, soft and high instead of spread out and flat.
- Don’t over-bake. Take the cookies out of the oven when they’re still light golden in color, not browned.
- Peanut-buttery-ness: I’ve upped the peanut butter from ½ to ¾ cup for extra peanut butter flavor. (And as long as you’ve got your scale out for the flour, weigh your peanut butter, too. If you’ve ever scooped peanut butter into – and then out of – a measuring cup you know how messy it is, and how hard it is to get every bit of peanut butter out of the cup. I just put my mixing bowl on the scale, zero out the weight, and then add dollops of peanut butter directly into the bowl until I reach the right amount.)
- Chocolate-to-cookie ratio: Roll the dough into small balls – 1 to 1¼ inches in diameter – for a thin border of cookie around the main attraction, the Hershey’s kiss. You get more cookies that way, too!
- And as to the question of shortening vs. butter, I just don’t use vegetable shortening, it’s a thing with me. It’s butter all the way.
And finally, there is a faction of Peanut Blossom Cookie bakers that seems to think it’s a bad thing to melt the Hershey’s kiss in the oven. I’ve even seen recipes that call for snatching the un-kissed cookies out of the oven, smashing the kiss on top and immediately transferring the tray of cookies to the freezer to stop the kiss from melting from the residual heat of the cookies. I’m sorry – what??
Bake the cookies about four-fifths of the way through, then push a kiss down into the center of each one, flattening the center of the cookie and causing the edges to crack. Then, return the tray of cookies to the oven for two more minutes, to finish baking the cookies and melt the kisses just enough to soften them, but not enough that they lose their shape. Once the cookies cool completely the kiss will harden again, almost as if it never melted. But for a little while after the cookies come of the oven – an hour or two, maybe a little more – the kiss will still be soft and molten….and this is the ultimate window for enjoying Peanut Blossom Cookies at their chocolatey, gooey best. Go ahead, you know you want to – pour me a glass of milk and I’ll join you.
Making these ahead and what to do with leftovers:
- These soft Peanut Blossom Cookies will keep for about a week in an air-tight container at room temperature. The chocolate kisses will stay soft for several hours after they come out of the oven, and will get smushed if the cookies are stacked. To preserve the shape of the kisses, either store the cookies in a single layer, or make staggered layers by placing the cookies of the upper layer in the spaces between the kisses on the lower layer.
- The cookies can be frozen after baking, but I prefer to freeze the unbaked dough so I get to experience the gooey, melty, just-baked kisses all over again for the fresh batch: Arrange balls of unbaked, un-sugared dough on a baking sheet and freeze them overnight, then transfer the balls to a freezer-safe zip-lock bag and freeze for up to a month. Spread the balls out in a single layer and thaw them overnight in the refrigerator before rolling them in sugar and baking them.
Peanut Blossom Cookies
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups (7 3/8 ounces or 210 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt, or ¼ teaspoon Morton’s
- ½ cup unsalted butter, preferably European-style, at room temperature
- ¾ cup (180 grams) creamy peanut butter
- ½ cup packed light brown sugar
- ¾ cup granulated sugar, divided
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon whole milk
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 48 to 60 Hershey’s milk chocolate kisses (from one 11-ounce package)
Directions
- Step 1 Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl and whisk to combine.
- Step 2 Put the butter and peanut butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on medium speed until smooth and combined. Add the brown sugar and ½ cup of the granulated sugar, and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl. Beat in the egg, then the vanilla and milk.
- Step 3 Add the dry ingredients and beat on the lowest speed just until the flour is incorporated. Use a rubber spatula to stir in the last bits of flour and make sure the dough is well-mixed.
- Step 4 Chill the dough for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 375 degrees. Peel the kisses, and measure out the remaining ¼ cup of granulated sugar into a shallow bowl.
- Step 5 When ready to bake, scoop out a scant tablespoon of dough using a spoon or small cookie scoop. Roll the dough into a small ball, 1 to 1¼ inches in diameter. Roll the ball of dough in the granulated sugar, covering it completely, then transfer it to an ungreased cookie sheet. Keep forming cookies and fill the baking sheet, spacing the balls of dough 3 inches apart.
- Step 6 Bake the cookies for 8 minutes. While the first sheet of cookies bakes, form and roll the next batch.
- Step 7 Remove the baking sheet from the oven and quickly press a kiss into the center of each cookie, pressing down gently to flatten the center of the cookie. Return the baking sheet to the oven and bake for 2 or 3 minutes more, until the cookies are pale golden (not browned), and the kisses are soft but still retain their shape.
- Step 8 Carefully remove the cookies from the baking sheet and transfer them to a rack to cool.
