Sunday, November 30, 2008

My tasty new discovery

I was making Peanut Blossom cookies for the first time to take to my in-laws for Thanksgiving. You know, the sugar-coated peanut butter cookies with the Hershey's Kisses in the middle. One of the classics-- at least for me. I remember eating them at various school and/or Girl Scout functions growing up. The combination of peanut butter and milk chocolate is a winner, of course, but I always had difficulty eating the cookies (okay, maybe not that much difficulty) because of the Hershey's Kiss sticking up in the middle. Do you pull the Kiss off the cookie and eat it first? Do you bite the top off the Kiss until it is level with the rest of the cookie? Who thought of this design anyway? Well, I wondered how I would resolve this issue now that I had control of the batch. I ended up buying Hershey's Miniatures and Hershey's Kisses, thinking I would try the flat Miniatures but have the Kisses to fall back on. I made the first batch in the traditional style with the Kisses in the middle (I figured at least one person would say "hey, isn't this supposed to have a Hershey's Kiss in it?"). They turned out perfectly. With the second batch, I used the Hershey's Miniatures. Not quite as pretty, and slightly too much chocolate (debatable, I suppose), but at least it was flat, and you would get chocolate in every bite of the cookie. Then, it came to me. While the chocolate was warm (having been placed on the cookies right out of the oven), I took a knife and spread the chocolate out like frosting. Yesssss! That's it! When the cookies cool, the chocolate hardens so you don't have a sloppy mess. My new invention tested well at home, but I decided to take the first (classic) batch to Thanksgiving dinner. They were a bit hit, too, but little did they know. Just wait until Christmas. My tasty new discovery will be revealed.

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