Carrot Cake Kisses?
I try to steer clear of the candy aisle at the grocery store. I do this because I know myself all too well. Here is what I think is going to happen…..In my head I quickly come up with some super decadent dessert or baked good idea in my head and reason with myself how delicious it will be and I can write a blog post about it and everyone will make it and love it and love me forever and ever. Here is what actually happens…. Somewhere around 7pm, after dinner is finished and cleaned up I start suspecting that I’m going to “need” just a tiny little bit of something sweet to get me through the evening. Surely I can just eat a couple to satisfy my craving and still have plenty for my recipe creation? WRONG. Sometime during the evening I will cross the line of having just enough, to having not near enough, to just plain not having ANY left. Then I start thinking about how many miles I’m going to have to go on the treadmill to work off that entire bag of M & Ms.
My theory during the last visit to the ON SALE EASTER CANDY aisle (who can pass up candy that is on sale) is that I would get something that I wouldn’t necessarily crave as candy itself, but something that I could use to elevate whatever I created. Lo and Behold, the Hershey’s Carrot Cake Kisses. Kisses, you say? Carrot cake flavored you say? YES and YES.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I could swap out the traditional Hershey kiss in a Peanut Butter Blossom for the carrot cake flavor…but carrot cake and peanut butter? Uh, no. So I thought about a piece of carrot cake and decided I would whip up some kind of cream cheese/pecan cookie that I could then plunge a carrot cake kiss straight into the center of. What was left was somewhere between a blossom cookie and a thumbprint. I put my cookies back into the oven for a minute to soften the kiss, but you don’t necessarily have to, if you want to keep the kiss shape.
- 30 Hershey's Carrot Cake flavored Kisses
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar, plus more for rolling cookies in
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup coarsely ground pecans (measured after grinding)
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the cream cheese, butter and sugar together until completely combined.
- Add the egg and vanilla and continue to mix.
- In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt and pecans and stir to combine.
- Slowly add the flour mixture into the cream cheese mixture.
- Stir until completely combined.
- Roll dough into balls (about the size of a walnut) and then roll each one in sugar.
- Place 12 on each cookie sheet, spaced evenly apart.
- Bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and immediately place a candy kiss in the center of each ball, pressing it down so that the sides crack.
- Place back in the oven for 30 seconds.
- Remove and let cool for 10 minutes, then place on wire rack to cool completely.
- If you want to maintain the shape of the kiss and not have it melt in the center, bake the cookies 11 minutes and then place the candy kiss in the center and let cool.
