Peanut Blossom Cookies

I haven't been baking many sweets lately because we don't want them in the house - I don't have much of a sweet tooth but I do love cookies! Dave annoyed me by flaking on his "man-day Monday" segment so I told him I'm making cookies with nuts in them on purpose so he can't eat them (allergies) as his "punishment" hahahah. Just kidding, that'd just be mean and he will do his video for next Monday so all good. Really I just felt like making peanut butter cookies and have this old recipe in my files that I cut out of an ad in some magazine...

8 oz. Hershey's Kisses
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup peanut butter, creamy or chunky
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
granulated sugar for rolling

1. Heat oven to 375'. Remove wrappers from Kisses.
2. Beat shortening and peanut butter in large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk, and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda, and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.
3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet.
4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a Kiss into center of each cookie; cookie will crack around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

my notes: I used almond kisses, smooth peanut butter., and coarse salt. The dough is a little crumbly but holds together when you shape it into balls. I used a small cookie scoop and experimented with (a) just releasing the dough from the scoop right into the sugar (it has a flat bottom that way) or (b) rolling the dough in my palms to form smooth balls. Both ways resulted in round cookies. The cookies are pretty crumbly when baked but the flavor is good, not dry. I liked the combination of the crunch from the almond Kiss and the smooth cookie texture - I don't think I'd like the nuts in the Kiss with chunky peanut butter in the cookies. My batch yielded 45 cookies.

left =  balls I rolled in my palms,
right=  dropped from the cookie scoop into the sugar...

outcome is the pretty much the same. 

3.20.18: Dottie F. Bunny (Mary knitted it for me!)
3.20.17: how to hinge mat your photos or artwork
3.20.16: boneless coq au vin

Happy moment ~ a heart shaped rock