Peanut Butter Hershey Kiss Cookies are a perfect marriage of salty peanut butter and sweet milk chocolate from the kisses. These are a great cookie recipe for a new baker to make since it's a drop cookie dough.
About This Cookie
These are my one of my son's favorite cookies.
I think I was baking batch after batch of peanut butter kiss cookies every day during December when he was still living at home.
But now, he's a big kid and living on his own at nearly the other end of the country from me. I'm in Maine. He's in Denver.
But, it's a solid tasting cookie and easy for beginning bakers.
It's essentially a drop cookie dough gussied up with a roll in sanding sugar and topped with a Hershey kiss.
Some bakers wonder if they should top the cookies with Hershey kisses before baking the cookies.
Absolutely not. Wait until the cookies are done baking, then top with kisses.
But wait, did you hear about what I'm dubbing the Great Hershey Kiss Scandal of 2019?
Due to a problem in manufacturing, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Hershey kisses were bagged and shipped out sans their tips!
There was an outcry among the baking community across the U.S, especially so in Pennsylvania, home to Hershey and a strong baking community, thanks in part to the wedding cookie table tradition.
Recipe Notes
My best tip for making Peanut Butter Kisses is to weigh the peanut butter on a digital kitchen scale. For one batch of peanut butter kiss dough you'll want 120 grams of peanut butter.
Put a piece of wax paper on the scale and scoop out spoonfuls of peanut butter plopping them onto the scale until you reach 120 grams.
This method is quicker than packing peanut butter into a measuring cup.
And, you won't have a sticky measuring cup to wash.
You can just push the peanut butter blob into the cookie dough and toss the wax paper.
I despise washing measuring cups sticky with peanut butter.
It takes forever to get it really clean and then your sponge reeks of peanut butter and then the other dishes aren’t getting clean because you’re using a peanut butter laden sponge.
But I digress.
Hershey Kiss Alternatives
If you want to make Peanut Butter Chocolate Kiss Cookies and you're out of kisses, there are substitutions.
I've used three semi-sweet morsels on each cookie before.
I'm in a baking group on Facebook and one baker there used those Brach's Milk Chocolate Stars instead of kisses. She said they were a big hit.
Of course, there's no rule that says you have to use milk chocolate kisses.
Hershey is making so many different flavored kisses these days.
There's white chocolate, dark chocolate and kisses stuffed with almonds!
I also found Mint Truffle on Amazon.
That's just to name a few.
Frequently Asked Questions
No, natural peanut butter has too much oil. You won't get a dough with a consistent texture so it's best to use regular, creamy peanut butter.
Put the kisses on once the cookies are done baking. They will soften a bit from the heat of the cookie but the kisses will harden back up as they cool.
Yes, you can freeze kiss cookies for up to three months in an airtight container. Sandwich the cookies between layers of wax paper before putting them in a container.
However, your cookies will taste better if you freeze balls of dough and then bake them from frozen.
Hershey Kisses are 25 calories each. Add 50 calories per cookie so one peanut butter kiss cookie is approximately 75 calories each.
Peanut Butter Hershey Kiss Cookies (Perfect for New Bakers)
Peanut Butter Hershey Kiss Cookies are a peanut butter drop cookie dough rolled in sanding sugar, baked and topped with milk chocolate Hershey kisses.
Ingredients
- ½ cup (104g) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (99g) packed brown sugar
- ½ cup (120g) creamy peanut butter
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 1 egg, large, room temperature
- 1 tablespoon milk or cream
- 1 ½ cups (192g) all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon (5g)baking soda
- ½ teaspoon (2g)baking powder
- Sanding sugar (for rolling balls of dough approximately ½ cup)
- 36 Hershey Kisses (unwrapped)
Instructions
In a large bowl with an electric mixer or in the bowl of your stand mixer, beat butter for one minute.
Add sugars and beat until aerated or pale yellow.
Add egg.
Add tablespoon of milk or cream.
Continue beating for another minute.
Add peanut butter and beat another two minutes or until the peanut butter is thoroughly combined with the cookie dough.
Add dry ingredients and beat until just combined. Don’t over beat or your cookies will be tough.
For best results chill the dough for an hour or up to overnight, well wrapped.
Spread out a large piece of plastic wrap.
Scoop out the cookie dough onto the wrap and cover the dough completely.
Flatten the dough into a disk like pie crust. This will make it easier to portion into balls of dough once chilled.
Or you can portion into balls and then chill the balls, up to you.
To bake:
Preheat oven to 375.
Put sanding sugar into a shallow plate or bowl.
Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, portion dough into one-inch scoops and roll in sanding sugar until thoroughly covered.
Bake 12 cookies at a time on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly puffed and golden brown
When cookies are done, they’ll have cracked a bit and will be golden.
While cooking are baking, unwrap Hershey kisses.
Remove cookies from oven, place an unwrapped Hershey kiss in the middle of each cookie and press down just slightly.
Let cookies cool on a wire rack or on a piece of parchment paper or a plate.
Store in between pieces of wax paper in an airtight container.
Cookies will keep about a week at room temperature.
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Nutrition Information
Yield 36 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 72Total Fat 4gSaturated Fat 2gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 1gCholesterol 13mgSodium 29mgCarbohydrates 8gFiber 0gSugar 4gProtein 1g
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