Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

These classic peanut butter kiss cookies are a must make for your  Christmas cookie platter. These peanut butter cookies get a Hershey’s chocolate kiss pressed into the center after they are baked. These cookies, also known as peanut butter blossoms, are ready in about 30 minutes or less!

 

When it comes to the holidays and Christmas time, I just can’t bake enough cookies. I usually stick to my favorites – Russian Tea Cake Cookies, Double Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, Christmas Shortbread Cookies, and Cut-Out Sugar Cookies.

A cookie I always loved and come to expect on Christmas cookie platters growing up were these traditional peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies, or peanut butter blossom cookies as you might know them as.

You know a soft chewy peanut butter cookie (that would be great as is), but gets even better after baking when a Hershey kiss gets plunked right in the middle of the cookie.

I always try to eat these by getting a little bit of a Hershey chocolate kiss and peanut butter cookie in every bite. It’s a challenge I sign up for every Christmas. A tough job. But someone has to do it, right?

For this peanut butter kiss cookie recipe, I started with my peanut butter cookie recipe, but I found that they quite get the shape I was looking for but with a little extra flour they held their shape perfectly to have a Hershey kiss get plunked down into the center.

These are the perfect cookie for your holiday cookie tray! 

See Also:

• Pucker up and enjoy one of these homemade lemon cookies with easy lemon glaze drizzled over them!
• Coconut macaroons are an easy gluten free chewy coconut cookie. Dip in chocolate for an easy chocolate treat!
• Grab a jar of peanut butter and make these wonderfully easy old fashioned peanut butter cookies with criss cross pattern on top!
• Make these brown sugar chocolate chips cookies made with 100% brown sugar making them wonderfully chewy!

Looking for the perfect Christmas cookies? Here are some festive favorites: Molasses Cookies, Biscoff Cookie Recipe, Butterscotch Cookies, Cinnamon Roll Cookies, Almond Crescent Cookies, Peppermint Bark Cookies, and Neapolitan Cookies. Perfect for spreading holiday cheer!

Why You Will Love This Recipe

• No Chilling Required – I love this cookie recipe for the sheer fact that they take about 10 minutes to mix up and can be immediately scooped and baked. No need to refrigerate the dough! One of my favorite Christmas cookies in about 30 minutes?! Yes. Please.
• Lots of peanut butter flavor – There’s a whole cup of peanut butter in this recipe so peanut butter lovers rejoice. I hate a peanut butter cookie that isn’t full of peanut butter flavor.
• Perfect for freezing – If you want to get ahead of the holiday season, then you can go ahead and freeze the cookies, baked or unbaked, and they hold up wonderfully.

Ingredients Needed

• All purpose flour – Make sure to measure your flour correctly or your cookies will come out dry and crumbly.
• Salt
• Baking soda
• Granulated white sugar (plus additional sugar to roll cookies in)
• Light brown sugar – If you don’t have any make your own homemade brown sugar!
• Unsalted butter – I like to unsalted butter because it will cause the cookies to spread less than using salted butter. Bring to room temperature quickly so it will cream well with the ugar.
• Egg – Use one large egg that’s at room temperature. Read my full tutorial on how to bring eggs to room temperature fast.
• Peanut butter – I like using a creamy peanut butter that doesn’t need to be stirred.  A natural peanut butter will make for an oily cookie dough that separates and have a crumblier texture.
• Vanilla extract
• Hershey’s kisses– I used classic milk chocolate kisses, but you can use whatever flavor of Hershey kisses you’d like!

How To Make Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

Preheat and prepare cookie sheets. Preheat oven to 375^oF degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

Make peanut butter cookie dough:

1. Mix dry ingredients together. In a small mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or a large mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer, cream together the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Add in the egg to the butter mixture and stir to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix in peanut butter and vanilla until smooth and creamy. 
3. Add dry ingredients. Stir in salt, baking soda and flour until well combined.

Shape and bake cookies

1. Shape cookies. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. I like to use a small cookie scoop.
2. Roll in granulated sugar. Roll each cookie dough ball in granulated sugar and place onto the baking sheet placed 2 inches apart.
3. Bake cookies.. Bake these peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies for 10-12 minutes until edges are set and bottoms are golden brown.
4. Press Hershey kisses into the center. Remove from the oven immediately press a Hershey kiss right into the center of each cookie.  Allow to cool for about 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack.

Recipe Tips

• Be sure to measure your flour correctly. Over-measuring your flour is going to result in a dry, crumbly peanut butter cookie. Read my full post on how to measure your flour correctly here.
• Use room temperature butter. By softening your butter properly (and here are 3 ways you can do that in a hurry!) will allow the sugar to punch tiny holes into the butter incorporating air into the dough. Cold butter won’t allow this to happen. So room temperature, unsalted, and you’re good to go.
• Don’t forget to take those eggs out early too. You also need a room temperature egg as well. Remember you want your ingredients all playing along well together. So a cold egg and room temperature butter just don’t play nice on the playground together. You’ll end up with butter that starts to seize up in your bowl. My trick? Put your eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 to 10 minutes and you’re good to go.
• Use a cookie scoop – For cookies that are all the same size and bake evenly I recommend using a cookie scoop.
• Line cookie sheets with parchment paper – For cookies that bake evenly on the bottom and release off the cookie sheet I recommend using parchment paper. Do not use wax paper as it can burn.

Recipe Variations

• Make chocolate cookies – Instead of the classic peanut butter make a chocolate cookie like my chocolate crinkle cookies, roll in powdered sugar and place a Hershey’s kiss in the middle after.
• Add sprinkles for the holidays – You can use green and red sprinkles on top of each Hershey kiss, or use red and white sprinkles for Valentine’s Day.
• Turn into Christmas tree cookie blossoms – Use cookie icing and pipe some onto the Hershey kiss in a circular pattern like a string of lights and add a few sprinkles so they look like little Christmas trees!
• Use peanut butter cups instead of Hershey kisses!

Storage Instructions

Baked cookies will keep at room temperature for up to 2 days in an air-tight container(they may keep longer but I think they are best enjoyed within a few days). I just store mine in a ziploc bag or an airtight container. You can make the peanut butter dough and refrigerate (up to 24 hours). 

You can freeze the dough and/or cookies. Freeze baked cookies for up to 3 months, just thaw at room temperature. If you freeze the dough, when ready to bake just bake froze and then add a few minutes of baking time. Read here on How To Freeze Cookie Dough.

Recipe FAQ’s

More Peanut Butter Recipes To Try

Here are some more of my favorite peanut butter desserts to make during the holiday season or whenever the craving strikes! Like my peanut butter oatmeal cookies made with peanut butter chips, or this easy stovetop peanut butter fudge (perfect for gifting!)

And I’m in the mood for peanut butter but don’t want to turn the oven on the I love mixing up a batch of these peanut butter rice krispie treats or my decadent no bake peanut butter pie!