A few weeks ago, my older daughter wanted some cookies. So I said “Well, go find a recipe you like on Tasty Kitchen!”

Then, ever the dutiful mother, I added, “Then march on into the kitchen and make ‘em.”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“See that room over there?” I continued. “The one with the stove and the oven and the sink full of dirty dishes? That’s the kitchen. Have fun! Knock yourself out!”

I’m such an awesome mommy.

On her own, my daughter found this version of the classic Peanut Butter – Hershey Kiss cookie, submitted to Tasty Kitchen by Amber the Little Miss Domestic last summer. I have a similar recipe myself, but I didn’t interfere, instead letting her make the cookies herself from start to finish.

The results? Magnificent! Slightly different from the ones I’ve always made, and so easy a twelve-year-old can (and did) make them.

She’s made them several times since then, including yesterday afternoon when…well, when her mother begged her to make them. And her mother took photos this time.

Here’s what you need: peanut butter, flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, brown sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, and shortening. And plenty of Hershey’s Kisses!

Begin by unwrapping the kisses. You’ll want to have them ready to go when you pull the cookies from the oven.

Dump the peanut butter, brown sugar, milk, vanilla, and shortening into the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix it until ingredients are smooth.

Crack an egg into the bowl, and mix it again until everything is smooth.

Yum. I’d say this is smooth. I could eat this by the spoonful!

Mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl…

And add it to the mixing bowl, mixing until just barely combined.

And that’s the dough! Now, my recipe calls for refrigerating the cookie dough until firm, rolling it into neat balls, then rolling the balls in sugar before baking. But this recipe involves more immediate satisfaction.

Just use a measuring teaspoon, and scoop out rounded spoonfuls. Place them on a cookie sheet.

Then the recipe says to make a criss-cross design

…Using the tines of a fork.

My girl made one pan with the criss-cross pattern…

And left one pan plain, just to see what the difference would be.

My girl is culinarily curious, like her weird mother.

We baked them only seven minutes, then removed them from the oven. Here’s the criss-cross batch.

And here’s the plain batch.

(By the way, this is a yummy peanut butter cookie recipe if you ever just want them without the kiss.)

Let the cookies stay on the cookie sheet for a minute or two, then lightly press the kisses into the middle of the cookie. Believe it or not, this is the batch that had started with the criss-cross pattern, which baked out to a large degree because we didn’t press it far enough into the cookie. But I have a sneaking suspicion that’s not going to affect the taste.

Here’s the plain batch.

And here’s a whole slew of ‘em. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of tasting one of these delights right after they’re done, here’s what happens: within a couple of minutes of placing the kiss onto the cookie, the kiss softens to the point that it completely melts in your mouth. I mean completely. And while they’re perfectly delicious the next day, nothing compares to one of these when it’s warm.

My verdict on this particular recipe is this: I actually like them better than the one I’ve used for years. For one thing, you don’t have to refrigerate the dough, which saves lots of time. For another, you don’t have to roll the dough into neat balls and roll them in sugar. Another time saver. But what I liked most about them (well, besides how delicious they were) was the relatively small size: because you measure by rounded teaspoon (which is much less dough per cookie than my recipe calls for), you wind up with much less cookie per kiss. More melted, wonderful milk chocolate per cookie.

And that’s a very, very, very good thing.

Here’s the printable. Thank you to Amber for sharing such a yummy delight!

Printable Recipe: Dianne’s Peanut Butter Sweet Kiss Cookies

Make these for someone you love this week. They’ll love you right back.

Love,
Ree

This cake recipe was submitted to Tasty Kitchen by Tanya Hollas, and the second I saw it I knew I wanted to give it a try someday.

I mean…cake? With tomato soup? How delightfully different and rebellious.

Here’s how it went down.

Here’s what you need: Tomato Soup (yes, you heard me), flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, baking soda, and golden raisins (optional!)

First thing you need to do is dump the tomato soup into a bowl. The world’s gone crazy!

Add the baking soda to the tomato soup…

And stir it to combine. It almost becomes foamy right off the bat because of the acid/baking soda mix!

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugar. There’s really not much butter in this cake, so it won’t be an overly creamy combination at this point.

Dump in the tomato soup/baking soda mixture…

And mix it together, which results in a really freaky-looking mixture.

Next, dump in the flour…

And mix it until just combined.

I took the liberty of adding in a cup of golden raisins. I thought it was the right thing to do.

Mix it together until the raisins are evenly distributed…and that’s it! This is a really simple cake—no eggs, very little butter.

Thoroughly grease a bundt pan. I sprayed the heck out of mine with baking spray—there’s nothing worse than having a cake partially stick to the pan.

Pour the batter into the bundt pan—it’s a little thick, so you’ll have to spoon it in.

Use a spoon or flat spatula to even out the surface, then pop it in the oven for 45 to 55 minutes, or until no longer jiggly.

Pouf! There ’tis!

Isn’t the color gorgeous?

Turn it onto a cake plate or platter and let it cool completely before icing.

And speaking of icing…

I made my own, but there’s also a cream cheese icing recipe included with the tomato cake recipe. You can’t go wrong—just mix cream cheese and powdered sugar in a bowl and good things will happen.

I did a package of cream cheese, half a stick of butter, and about a pound and a half of powdered sugar.

Mix it all together until it’s creamy and smooth.

Heap the icing on top of the cooled cake…

Smear and swipe and smooth until the cake is evenly covered.

Then cut right into it. No one’s watching!

Confession: my cake was still a tad warm when I iced it.

But when it comes to baked goods, I have a problem with patience.

Is this not gorgeous?

Is this not lovely?

Is this not tempting? Yum.

 
VERDICT: As I suspected it would be, the cake was really delicious. While you can still detect the tomato soup scent in the batter, once the cake is baked the tomato qualities are replaced by the spices…and it really does wind up as a richly colored spice cake. If you’re sensitive to the spices in the cake, you could easily pull back just a bit on quantities—particularly on the ground cloves—as the flavor really was powerful and strong! I loved everything about it, though, and thought the cream cheese icing was the perfect balance. Note that this cake does not contain eggs—perfect for egg-sensitive human-types.

Try it sometime soon—and this is the key: don’t tell anyone what the ingredients are until after they’ve tasted it.

That’s one of my favorite activities!

Here’s the printable recipe for the cake. Note that I substituted butter for Crisco; I think I might try shortening next time.

Tomato Soup Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Thank you, Tanya Hollas, for sharing!

I’ve been intrigued with this frosting recipe for months, not just because of its alluring title, but also because if its ingredients. Five tablespoons of flour? In frosting? Let’s just say my interest was piqued. I finally got around to making it yesterday evening; Marlboro Man’s grandmother has some old friends staying at The Lodge […]