4th Annual Cookie Exchange

Last night was our 4th annual cookie exchange with some amazing friends.  We scored a lot of awesome treats! I'll admit that I always regret being apart of this cookie exchange while I'm making my 7 batches of cookies but when it's all said and done and we swap everything it is completely worth it!  The 6 of us ladies always touch base ahead of time to ensure we'll have a good variety of treats. This year we had short bread, chocolate candy cane cookies, chocolate coconut macaroons, sugar cookies, truffles and peanut butter cups. CHA-CHING! I haven't yet sampled everything but it all looks delicious! My husband and I are hosting 2 Christmases this year (one will be 50+ people!!!) so I'll need to bake a few more batches of various cookies to make our stash last through the holidays.  I ended up making sugar cookies with a Hersey's kiss on top.  They turned out well for the most part but next time I will make them a tad smaller, add some nutmeg, and perhaps mix up the types of kisses I put on the top. Below is the adapted recipe. Hope you like 'em. Check out our 2nd and 3rd annual cookie exchanges here and here.

Yield: 24 cookies
Ingredients
Various Hersey's Kisses (hugs, milk chocolate, candy cane, etc)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 egg

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons milk

Red coloured sugar (put regular sugar in a Ziploc, add 5-10 drops of food colouring and shake)

 

Method
Preheat over to 350 degrees. Remove wrappers from the kisses (sample each one!). In a stand mixer, beat butter, sugar, vanilla, and egg in large bowl until well blended. In a separate bowl stir together flour, nutmeg, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture alternatively with the milk to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Shape dough into 1 inch balls and colored sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes (I did 8 -- I like my cookies chewy!)  Remove from oven and press a kiss into center of each cookie. Immediately place in the freezer and don't touch for 10 minutes. As soon as you move the tray the kisses collapse. Enjoy!

It was mighty cold outside the night I made mine so I lined them up on my deck railing to cool.