Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies II

We made these cookies to remember dad's birthday this past weekend. I know we already had a recipe for this on the blog, but I have been wanting a softer, less crumbly peanut butter cookie recipe. This is my new favorite recipe for these cookies!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups peanut butter
• 1 cup shortening
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup milk 
• 2 eggs 
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup white sugar, or as needed
• 2 (12 ounce) bags Hershey's Kisses, unwrapped

Directions:

Beat peanut butter, shortening, 2/3 cup white sugar, brown sugar, milk, eggs, and vanilla extract together with an electric mixer in a large bowl until creamy and smooth.

Spoon flour into measuring cup (don't scoop - it adds too much flour). Sift flour, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl. ( I don't sift, I just mixed well.)

Gradually fold flour mixture into peanut butter mixture to form a smooth dough. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour 1/4 cup white sugar into a shallow bowl. Scoop dough into 1-inch balls, roll balls in sugar, and place 1 1/2 inches apart on baking sheets. Bake cookies in the preheated oven for 8 minutes. Open the oven door and press a chocolate kiss about halfway down in the center of each cookie. Bake for until chocolate begins to melt and lose form, about another 2 minutes. Cool on wire racks until chocolate hardens, at least 3 hours.

A few notes:

Refrigerating the dough at least 1 hour is not strictly necessary, but I recommend it because it makes the dough easier to work with when shaping balls and also helps retain the shape when baking and avoid too much cracking when adding kisses.

Prep kisses by unwrapping foils and lining them upright on a plate or cookie sheet for easy transfer to cookie dough. Baking dough too long before adding kisses can cause kisses to fall out of the cookie dough when cooled. Kisses need to bake long enough to adhere to the cookie base but not to the point that they lose shape. Do not over bake!

Stacking cookies before chocolate has fully cooled and hardened will cause them to squish and loose shape. If desired, freeze immediately when cooled. I've kept them up to 2 months and they taste as fresh as the day they were baked.