peanut butter kisses

Peanut butter and chocolate. Can you think of a better combination?? It is definitely one of my favorites. Perfect mix of slightly salty and sweet. Yum. These cookies have a bunch of different names, I think Hershey's calls them peanut butter blossoms, but I've always called them peanut butter kisses. Adorable and delicious they are a fabulous Christmas treat!

Peanut Butter Kisses:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
48 hershey kisses, unwrapped

Directions:
Cream together the butter, peanut butter and the sugars until fluffy. Add in the egg, milk and vanilla and beat for 2-3 minutes. Finally mix in the flour baking soda and salt.
Form 1 teaspoon (ish) sized balls of dough and put them on the cookie sheet. Once evenly spaced, press a kiss into each one and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
Let cool for a few minutes before trying to move them.
These are a little bit softer than normal peanut butter blossoms because of the extra peanut butter, it just makes them better in my opinion!!

molasses kringles

I've made gingerbread for the past 10 years, every single Christmas. It's delicious, but definitely a lot of work. This year I decided to branch out a little bit and instead of doing the "roll and decorate" gingerbread, I wanted to try a chewy molasses cookie. After searching foodgawker for what seemed like hours, I decided to go with a recipe from What Megan's Making for molasses kringles. They certainly did not disappoint. They are soft, chewy, spicy and just a bit sweet. I when I make them again I'll ditch the glaze though. I think it made them just a bit too sweet. If you want the recipe for the glaze, check out Megan's original recipe!

Molasses Kringles:
3/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the butter and brown sugar until very light and fluffy. Add in the molasses and egg and beat until well combined. Mix in the flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Mix until just combined.
Roll into balls and place on a cookie sheet. On my 1/2 sheet pan I fit 20 cookies and they barely fit.
Bake 10 minutes until lightly browned on edges. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheet.

nyt chocolate chip cookies

If you've read any blogs during the holidays over the past few years, I'm sure you've heard of the New York Times chocolate chip cookies. There are a million chocolate chip cookie recipes out there. They go from super simple to really complicated. 

This one is more on the complicated side. It takes two different types of flour and it has to sit overnight in the refrigerator. When all is said and done, they are definitely delicious. I'm not sure if they're really worth all the extra time and work, but they are delicious. The best thingt about them is that even if you over cook them a tiny bit, they are still nice and chewy! I tried not to change anything, but I decided to go with smaller chunks of chocolate and smaller cookies. Cookies that are FIVE inches are huge, especially when there are so many other cookie choices around to try. I'm not going to include the recipe here, but check it out. They're at least worth a try!