PEANUT BUTTER BLOSSOMS

Peanut Butter Blossoms

THE NEW YORK TIMES

• YIELD
5 dozen cookies

• TIME
35 minutes

For as long as anyone can remember, wedding receptions in Pittsburgh have featured cookie tables, laden with dozens of homemade old-fashioned offerings like lady locks, pizzelles and buckeyes. For weeks ahead, sometimes months, mothers and aunts and grandmas and in-laws hunker down in the kitchen baking and freezing. 

INGREDIENTS

• 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 4 ounces (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

• ½ cup smooth peanut butter

• ½ cup granulated sugar, more for rolling

• ½ cup light brown sugar

• 1 large egg

• 1 tablespoon milk

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• Nonstick spray or vegetable oil for cookie sheet, optional

• 5 dozen (one 11-ounce package) Hershey’s Kisses, foil removed

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PREPARATION

1 Sift together flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. Using an electric mixer, cream together butter, peanut butter, 1/2 cup granulated sugar and light brown sugar. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat until well blended. Gradually add flour mixture, mixing thoroughly. If the dough is very soft, refrigerate for about 1 hour.

2 Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray, oil or line a cookie sheet with nonstick liner and set aside. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. (For a precise number of cookies, divide the dough into 5 pieces, and shape each piece into 12 balls.)

3 Roll cookies in sugar and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake until very light brown and puffed, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove sheet from oven and lightly press a candy kiss into center of each cookie, allowing it to crack slightly. Return to oven until light golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from oven, cool completely and store in an airtight container.