Peanut Blossoms Recipe from Natasha Moore

Happy holidays! All month long meet some of our authors and their best selling books.

Today Natasha Moore is sharing her Peanut Blossom recipe. Yum!

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Chocolate and peanut butter – is there any better taste combination in the world?? Not for me!

In The Standby Guy, book 2 in the Men of Lakeside series, Carter and Katie are best friends and he comes over to her house every afternoon for coffee. Katie always has a dish of candy – often chocolate kisses, on the kitchen table. Katie might be a lot like me in that respect. So when Christmas comes around, how can I resist making Peanut Blossoms?

Christmas Peanut Blossoms

This cookie has always been a favorite in our household during the Christmas season. Enjoy!

1 ¾ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

½ cup shortening

½ cup creamy peanut butter

1 egg

2 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Small amount of granulated sugar in a shallow bowl

48 chocolate kisses, unwrapped

Mix the flour, soda and salt in a large bowl. Then add all the remaining ingredients except the chocolate kisses. Beat at a low speed until well mixed, scraping bowl occasionally. Then chill the dough for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll small amounts of dough into 1 inch balls. Dip top half in the granulated sugar and place them, plain side down, onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove from oven and immediately press a chocolate kiss into the center of each cookie (cookie cracks around the edge). Makes 4 dozen cookies. WARNING: Don’t touch the cookies until the chocolate kiss has hardened again – this seems to take FOREVER J Sometimes I put them on a cookie sheet in the freezer or the fridge to hurry up the hardening process.

Enjoy!

Natasha Moore

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Be sure to pick up The Standby Guy on sale for 99¢ for a limited time only!

For the last fifteen years, Katie Dixon has been focused on her responsibility as a single mother, raising her son and making ends meet. Now her son’s off to college, her photography business is stable, and she’s more than ready to embrace her “me time,” including a romantic fling or two. The only problem is that she hasn’t dated in years and needs a little help finding her confidence again.

Carter Colburn has been her next door neighbor and closest friend for years. So when he needs a date for a business dinner that could boost his law firm and help keep the family business on solid footing, she offers to pretend to be his girlfriend. He’s funny, sexy, and a confirmed bachelor—the perfect guy to help her find her mojo and nothing more.

But when local residents catch them sharing a tipsy kiss, the rumor mill goes wild. It’s fun to pretend to be dating for a while. But when Carter starts to take the idea of settling down with his best friend seriously, Katie is terrified by the prospect of losing her precious “me time” all over again.