Peanut Butter Thumbprints

 
Bake Sale recipe #1! I call these cookies "thumbprints" because traditional recipes involve pressing your thumb into the center of each ball of dough in order to make a spot for your filling (chocolate, jam, etc). In my simple recipe, however, you need only press your chocolate into the center of each baked cookie while they're still warm. Saves you time. Saves your thumbs. All you need to remember is the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Silly!), with a pile of handy HERSHEY'S KISSES.

The first three steps in this recipe can also be used for plain peanut butter cookies without the chocolate KISSES. I first learned it from my aunt/Godmother when she found out I liked to bake. It's a quick peanut butter cookie recipe that only requires three ingredients, and not even any flour! So when I'm not in the mood for chocolate, I just take a fork sprayed with a touch of nonstick cooking spray and make a criss-cross pattern on the top of each ball of dough to flatten it. The finished cookies instead will look like the ones below.

For Peanut Butter Thumbprint cookies, however, you can get a great presentation without that much extra work. So for a bake sale that requires a lot of product to sell, I knew this would be the perfect recipe to utilize.

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter (I use Skippy Natural (Creamy) as it doesn't have hydrogenated oils but is still nice and smooth).
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
12-18 chocolate KISSES (for the bake sale I went with milk chocolate, but previous batches I've made using dark chocolate--see the picture above "About Me and This Blog"--since it's healthier and also better on my stomach).

Yes, that's really all you need!

Directions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the peanut butter, sugar, and egg. Stir well until the egg is no longer visible.

2.) Form the dough into 1-inch balls (you can vary the size, going a little bit smaller if you want the cookies to match the size of the KISSES or larger if you prefer big cookies). Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and flatten just slightly with your hand.

3.) Bake approximately 10 minutes (keep an eye on them so they don't over bake).

4.) Remove from oven and immediately press a chocolate KISS into the center of each cookie. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 more minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely and allow the chocolate to harden again. You want the bottom of the KISS to melt into the cookie just a bit while the tip keeps its pointy shape. Or, if you prefer traditional "thumbprint" cookies, you can press the kisses flat and have a little pool of chocolate in the center of each cookie instead.

And that's all there is to it! Simple, quick, pretty, and delicious! My older brother is a big fan of this cookie because he loves peanut butter, and apparently it was a hit at the bake sale too--my boxes of thumbprints disappeared before the end of the first sale day, so I made more to bring for day two.