Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies

Can I use natural peanut butter?

No, don’t even think about it! We need the extra oil that’s in regular peanut butter like Jif or Skippy! Natural peanut butter isn’t as smooth and creamy. It will make your cookies crumbly and dry.

How to make Peanut Butter Blossoms

1. Freeze the Hershey’s kisses.
2. Cream the butter, then beat in sugar. Beat in peanut butter, then egg and vanilla.
3. Mix in dry ingredients until just combined.
4. Roll dough into balls, roll the balls in sugar, and place on baking sheets.
5. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes; unwrap the kisses while you wait.
6. Remove baked cookies from the oven and press a kiss onto each one.
7. Let set up on the baking pans for 5 minutes before cooling completely.

First things first: tossing your whole bag of Hershey’s Kisses into the freezer so they’re super cold when it’s time to press them into the cookies after baking is ESSENTIAL. If you skip this step, your kisses might fall right off once they are cooled, which is super frustrating!

Now it’s time to mix together the dough. Beat the butter with sugars before adding pb, to make it nice and fluffy and avoid chunks.

Next add a FULL CUP of peanut butter. Yes I said a whole cup! There is twice as much peanut butter than butter in this recipe. And make sure it’s name brand. It really does make a huge difference.

Once your pb is smoothly mixed in, add the egg and vanilla.

Add all your dry ingredients at the same time! Flour first, then I like to use my teaspoon to mix the salt and baking soda into the flour a bit before starting the mixer again.

Once you’ve got it all together (here’s what the final dough looks like), throw it in the fridge for a quick 15 minute chill.

I like to shape these cookies into about 1 inch balls. I think technically this scoop is a 1 and 1/4 inch, but 1 inch is even better. You can also just use your hands. Make them about the size of a walnut.

Give ‘em a good roll in some sugar. You want them well dusted to leave that crunchy sugar coating when you bite into them!

These cookies don’t spread much, so you can fit 15 on a standard 11×17 half sheet.

A few minutes before the timer goes off, go ahead and get the kisses out of the freezer and start unwrapping them so they’ll be ready once the cookies come out.

You can see that these cookies stay a little bit puffy and don’t spread out much. That’s perfect, because we’re now going to press that kiss into the center of the cookies while they are still hot.

Can you see that the frozen kiss is sweatin’ a bit? That’s because it’s a frozen piece of chocolate going onto a hot hot cookie. This condensation is totally normal and will go away once the kiss melts completely. After it melts completely it will maintain its shape (as long as you don’t touch it!) and harden into perfect kiss shape.

But right now it’s time to eat one of these while they are hot. With a glass of milk. You should sit down first. This level of melty peanut butter and chocolate is no joke.

Another variation to try is to use different colored sugars to roll the dough in. This is especially fun around the holidays. Try red and green for Christmas, orange and purple for Halloween, pastels for Easter, or even red, white and blue for 4th of July! You can buy different colored sugar in the baking section by the sprinkles, sometimes it’s called sanding sugar.

How do you store Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies?

You can keep your Peanut Butter Blossoms out at room temperature for about 5-6 days in a well-sealed, airtight container. They will be at their best within 1-2 days of baking. Don’t put them in the fridge, they will dry out faster than you can even get yourself a glass of milk, no thanks. If you’re hoping to have them last longer than a week, definitely plan on freezing them.

Can you make Peanut Butter Blossom dough ahead of time?

Freezing the dough: Peanut Butter Blossoms are super easy to freeze! My favorite method for freezing is to follow the instructions all the way up through scooping the dough into balls. Then, instead of rolling them in sugar, place them on a cookie sheet and flash freeze. After about 30 minutes, move the frozen cookie balls to a gallon size freezer bag and label. Once you’re ready to bake them, remove them one at a time, roll in sugar well, and place on the cookie sheet. Bake as directed in the instructions, straight from frozen. The cookies may need to bake a few minutes longer from frozen, so keep an eye on them.

Can you freeze Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies?

To freeze already baked cookies, wait until they are cooled completely so you don’t get melty chocolate everywhere. I like to flash freeze them on a plate or wire rack in the freezer. Once the kiss is hardened, place cookies in an airtight container or ziplock, with wax or parchment paper in between layers. They will store well for about 1-2 months, after that they will start to dry out in the cold freezer air. To thaw, just set out at room temperature for an hour or two, still in the sealed container.

Other cookies you are going to love for Christmas!