Improv Challenge: Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

Although Valentine's Day has come and gone, who says that you can't still treat your love to some baked goods?! As much as I may love spending time with my hubs on Valentine's Day, I love spending time with him regardless.  That is why, for this month's improv challenge, I was so happy when Kristen from Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker had us create any dish that we wanted, so long as it contained hearts and flowers!

In keeping with the season, and because I love baking for my hubby, I decided to make his favorite cookies - peanut butter kiss cookies - only this time around, I cut the cookies into the shape of a heart and used chocolate hearts for the center.

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

Ingredients:
-1/2 cup shortening
-1/2 cup peanut butter
-1/2 cup sugar
-1/2 cup brown sugar
-1 egg
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 3/4 cup flour
-1 bag chocolate kisses with wrappers removed (or hearts)
-Extra sugar for rolling

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the shortening, peanut butter, sugar, and brown sugar in a bowl.  Add the egg and vanilla.  Then, mix in the baking soda, salt, and flour.  Scoop out spoon fulls of dough into your hands and roll into little balls.  If you are making them in the shape of the heart, then you can just take a spoon full of dough and press it down into a heart mold.  The picture below illustrates what these cookies normally look like when not making them into hearts:

Once you have a few balls of dough, roll them around in the extra sugar and place on a baking sheet.  Make sure to leave them in the ball shape (or heart shape) as they will puff out naturally, and when it comes time to place the kisses in, they will spread out to be larger cookies.

Continue rolling your dough into balls and rolling them in sugar.  Once all of your dough mounds are ready to go, place them into the oven and bake for 8 minutes.

After 8 minutes, remove the cookies from the oven and place the kisses or hearts into the center.  The cookies will puff out and crack a little when you do this.  That is normal.  Then, return the cookies to the oven and bake for an additional 2-5 minutes.  I usually only bake them for an additional 2 minutes.

Once done, remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool on a cooling rack.  Although sometimes it is hard not to bite into these cookies right away! Enjoy!

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