Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

For this week of Christmas cookies, I made one other Pinterest cookie. Since I love my sweets and I eat too many cookies, I only tried out two recipes.

My sister use to love to make these cookies at Christmas time, and I use to love to eat them. So I tried my luck with this Pinterest pin, Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies:

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies (Makes about 30ish):

- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar, for rolling
- 30 chocolate kisses, unwrapped (I had about 36 cookies, so I needed a few more kisses)

1. Preheat oven to 350F. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
2. Mix peanut butter and butter until smooth with an electric mixer, or stand. Add brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Slowly add in the dry ingredients.
3. Place granulated sugar on a plate. Roll about 1 tablespoon of dough into a ball, then roll into the sugar. Place on cookies sheets, 2 inches apart.
4. Bake until the cookies begin to puff up, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven, gently press in chocolate kiss into the center of each cookie. Then return to the oven and bake for about 2 to 3 minutes, until cookies are golden and cholocate is soft.
5. Let cool on cookie sheet for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.
6. Then Enjoy!

These cookies are amazing, just as good as when my sister makes them! This was a Christmas tradition success and of course a Pinterest Success!

Colorful Swirl Cookies

This week I have done a little Christmas baking. Thanks to Pinterest I tried a couple new recipes.

This Pinterest pin was my inspiration for one of the Christmas cookies I baked, recipe here:

Mine looked nothing like this beautiful master piece, and they weren't the best sugar cookies. But since I love cookies, I ate way too many of these mediocre cookies.

Colorful Swirl Cookies

- 2 cups of flour (The recipe that I followed, used regular flour, but the recipe they followed said cake flour. So maybe it would have tasted better with cake flour?)
- 1/2 tsp of baking powder
- 1/4 tsp of salt
- 2/3 cup of unsifted powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup of granulated sugar
- 2 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter
- 1 tsp of vanilla
- 1/2 tsp of food coloring your choice (and/or 1/2 tsp of any desired extra extracts)
- 1 1/2 cup of holiday sprinkles (I only used about 1/4 cup of sprinkles)

1. Mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugars.
2. Add in butter and vanilla extract, mix until smooth.
3. Remove half of the dough and roll it between two pieces of wax paper. About 9 x 11 (I think mine was more 11 x 11) and about 1/4 inch thick (I just eye balled it).

4. Then with the remaining dough in the bowl, mix food coloring (if you use a water based food coloring add a little bit of extra flour). Also add extra extract if you want, I added a little bit extra vanilla, but you could use mint, or lemon, or whatever you like.
5. Then roll out the second half of the dough, the same way as the first half. Then refrigerate for about 2 hours.

6. When firm, remove the top sheet of both halves of dough, brush the uncolored dough with water using a pastry brush.

7. Now put the two tops together and trim around the outside, to make straight even lines. Then roll up the dough into a long log, and roll into sprinkles.

8. Now wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3 - 4 hours. Once refrigerated you can slice the dough log (1/4 - 1/8 inch slices) and start baking.

 9. Bake at 350 for 15 - 17 minutes. Let cookies rest on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes, then move them to a cooking rack to finish cooling.
10. Then enjoy!

This dough was so hard to work with. It was either too hard and cracking, or too soft and melting; there was no in between stage.  Plus, they didn't taste the greatest.  I mean I ate them like they were amazing, but they weren't. Also they crumbled everywhere. You can even see in my finish picture the sprinkle layer was parting from the cookie. So I think I have to call this a Pinterest Fail, maybe? 

Week 20 Theme...

You my have noticed I love sweets, and I love to bake. Most of the Pinterest food pins I post are all delicious sweets.

So I can't have a month of Christmas fun without a week of baking Christmas cookies! This week I will be baking up some new cookie recipes for cookie exchanges and get togethers.

Baking is one of my favorite things to do around Christmas time, so I can't wait to try out some new Pinterest inspired treats. Hopefully I don't eat them all before they reach their destinations. ;)