Holiday Cooking!

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Holiday cooking has kept our kiddie chef (as well as the editor of Kiddie Cuisine), hoppin' busy. Twenty-four dozen (288) cookies were made yesterday, and today we're more than doubling that. We hope to get back to blogging soon....we have some GREAT recipes coming up, so don't give up on us, okay?

Did you ever wonder???

As we made peanut butter kiss cookies the other night, Mindy's question was, "Why are they called kisses?"

Check out this link for the answer, and see some other fun facts as well...

http://http://www.hersheys.com/kisses/about/funfacts.asp

And here's a link that will take you to a video tour of the Hershey's factory...I thought it was pretty neat to watch!
http://www.hersheys.com/discover/tour_video.asp

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

Ingredients:
48 Chocolate Kisses
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup Creamy Peanut Butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Granulated sugar

Tools:

• Electric beaters
• Spatula
• Cookie pan
• Mixing bowl
• Medium bowl
• Wire cooling rack

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Remove wrappers from chocolates.

2. Beat shortening and peanut butter in large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate into center of each cookie; cookie will crack around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. Yield: About 4 dozen cookies.

Chocolate Turtles

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1 recipe in 5 easy steps!

Items Needed:

• Cookie sheet
• Margarine
• Pecans
• Kraft Caramels
• Hershey's chocolate bar

1. Grease cookie sheet with margarine.
2. Arrange chopped or whole pecans in little stacks (may use any kind of nuts).
3. Top each stack with a Kraft caramel.
4. Bake 10 minutes at 350 or until caramel is soft.
5. Remove from oven and top each with 1 square of regular chocolate bar.

We used chocolate chips on ours, but I do believe that following the recipe and using Hershey's bars would be less messy. :-)