Peanut Butter Kisses

As you probably can imagine, this recipe gets it's name from the lovely combination of a peanut butter cookie topped with a Hersey Kiss.  These are also a simple cookie to put together.  I think the longest most laborious part of these cookies are unwrapping the Hershey kisses to place on the top.  Of course you could also just pipe some chocolate on top, but I like the way the chocolate kiss just melts slightly as they are baking.  These beautiful little cookies are just a nice Christmas twist on your typical peanut butter cookie.

Before baking...sugar coated and a Hershey kiss on top.

 Fresh from the oven.

 This recipe makes enough cookies for one bag of Hershey kisses.

Peanut Butter Kisses

1 cup butter

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 bag Hershey Kisses, unwrapped

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Cream together butter, peanut butter, brown sugar and white sugar.  Mix until light and fluffy.  Once creamed add in the eggs, one at a time, vanilla and mix until incorporated.  Finally, mix in flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Refrigerate dough for about 30 minutes.  Remove dough from refrigerator and roll into balls and dip into sugar.  Place them on a cold cookie sheet.  Please a Hershey Kiss in the middle of each cookie and bake for about 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let stand 1-2 minutes to cool before moving to a cookie rack to cool completely.

Salted Nut Rolls

Salted Nut Rolls remind me of my mom.  She was always making these for when one of my cousins came to visit from out of town.  She knew he liked them and as they are so quick and simple, she loved to do this small thing for him.  It also is another of the Christmastime favorites and are a bit like the Salted Nut Bars that Pearson's of St.Paul, MN makes.This is a quick bar to make and it doesn't even require you to turn on an oven, but you do need your stove top.

Salted Nut Rolls

16 oz jar of dry roasted peanuts

3 Tablespoons butter

11 oz. bag peanut butter chips

1 can sweetened condensed milk

10 oz. package of mini marshmallows

Grease the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch cake pan.  Pour 1/2 a jar of the dry roasted peanuts into the bottom of the pan.  In a medium saucepan, melt the butter, peanut butter chips and sweetened condensed milk over low hat.  Be careful not to let the mixture boil.  Once everything is melted, remove from the heat and stir in the mini marshmallows.  Spread this mixture carefully over the dry roasted peanuts in the bottom of the pan.  Pour the remaining peanuts over the top and press them in.  Refrigerate briefly (for about 15-20 minutes) and then cut into squares.  Makes one cake pan.

O'Henry Bars

This is one of my favorites to make and to eat.  The combination of oats, peanut butter and chocolate makes me sign.  This is also a bar which freezes nicely.  I used to eat these only frozen, but sometimes the oatmeal crust would separate from the peanut butter chocolate topping which would cause quite the dilemma...do I eat the chocolate only, but then what to do with the equally delicious crust?  Eat that along side or separately?  Not a terrible dilemma to have of course! 

These bars are many of the ones you can whip up pretty fast, so if they get eaten quickly you don't have anything to fear in just making more!  Plus, the chocolate peanut butter top is hard to resist!

O'Henry Bars

4 cups oatmeal

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 white sugar

1 cup of butter, melted

1 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup peanut butter

Preheat oven to 350F.  Mix melted butter with the 4 cups of oatmeal, brown and white sugar.  Mix until well incorporated and pat into a greased 9x13 inch cake pan.  Bake this layer for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool.  While the oatmeal layer is cooling, make the chocolate peanut butter topping.  Melt in a saucepan the chocolate chips and the peanut butter.  Stir continuously so that chocolate does not burn.  As soon as the chocolate chips are almost melted remove from heat and continue stirring until smooth.  Pour this mixture over the oatmeal layer.  Let cool to room temperature.  Once cooled, place in refrigerator for about 30 minutes to set the chocolate in order to be able to cut into pieces.