What a bad little blogger I am. Look at me, not posting a single thing after Father’s Day, and here it is almost Christmas. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been cooking much at all, and certainly not anything new that I haven’t already shared with you. But if you are still looking for something to make last minute before Christmas, you are in luck!

I whipped up these cookies last night, and they were super easy. Just grab a bag of candy cane Hershey Kisses from the store, as you probably already have everything else. (If I were you, I’d also buy some red and green sugar though. You can make your own with regular sugar and some food coloring, but why?)

These are just a simple sugar cookie, rolled in colored sugar before baking. Then you simply press an unwrapped kiss into the center of the cookie after pulling them out of the oven. It should be no surprise that I enjoy these types of cookies as I have done the Kiss + Cookie combination a couple of times before! (See here, here, and here.) I can’t help it. They are always good, are usually pretty easy, and provide bang for the buck! This particular cookie + kiss combination is a winner in my book as well. I can easily see myself making these cookies in future years. Cute, festive and tasty!

The recipe states that you will get 4 dozen cookies. I used a cookie scoop to portion mine out and ended up with 32 cookies. That leaves me a handful of kisses left over for eating… how disappointing.

Candy Cane Kiss Cookies
Source: Hersheys.com

48 HERSHEY’S KISSES Brand Candy Cane Mint Candies
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons milk
Red or green sugar crystals, granulated sugar or powdered sugar

Heat oven to 350°F. Remove wrappers from candies.
Beat butter, granulated sugar, egg and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; add alternately with milk to butter mixture, beating until well blended.
Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in red sugar, granulated sugar, powdered sugar or a combination of any of the sugars. Place on ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned and cookie is set. Remove from oven; cool 2 to 3 minutes. Press a candy piece into center of each cookie. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. About 4 dozen cookies.

You may have noticed by now that I generally take my baked goodies to work to foist off on my coworkers. Well, one of my coworkers in particular has been asking me to make “those chocolate covered peanut butter rice krispie things” for a couple of months now… I finally decided to go ahead and fulfill his request, but I’d never made them before, and I didn’t have a recipe. A quick google search turned up “chocolate scotcharoos” on the Rice Krispies website.

They certainly looked like the right thing, I just wasn’t too sure about the butterscotch chips that the recipe called for in the chocolate layer. However, I decided that if some peanut butter is good, then more peanut butter was better. So I swapped the butterscotch for peanut butter. I actually ended up using a bag of Nestle’s chocolate and peanut butter chips, mostly because they were on sale.

These treats ended up being super easy to make… I think the hardest part was cutting them in pieces once they were done. (We won’t talk about the fact that my kitchen floor is STILL sticky.) I recommend lining the pan with parchment paper, and then spraying down the whole mess with cooking spray before you get started. It will make your life much easier later! I think I cut the treats into 32 pieces, but they were super rich, so you would be fine to cut them even smaller!

As always, I took them to work, and everyone RAVED about them. I actually had to cut some people off because they ate so many in one sitting! I still don’t know how they did– I was in a sugar coma after eating just one!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats
Adapted from: Rice Krispies

1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter
6 cups rice krispies
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips (I used one bag of the chocolate and peanut butter chips)

1. Place corn syrup and sugar into 3-quart saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until sugar dissolves and mixture begins to boil. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter. Mix well. Add KELLOGG’S RICE KRISPIES cereal. Stir until well coated. Press mixture into 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan coated with cooking spray. Set aside.

2. Melt chocolate and butterscotch chips together in 1-quart saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly. Spread evenly over cereal mixture. Let stand until firm. Cut into 2 x 1-inch bars when cool.

Note: Before measuring the corn syrup, coat your measuring cup with cooking spray–the syrup will pour easily out of the cup.

As is probably obvious, I still haven’t been cooking (or baking). Good thing I took these pictures in… oh… APRIL. Slacker, right here.

I’ve been contemplating whether or not I would update more successfully if I changed to a different format. Maybe a few pictures, a little bit of commentary, and the recipe. I don’t know though. I’ve gotten good feedback on the step by step pictures, and even though it is very tedious to stop and take picture of every single step, and then blog every single one of those steps individually… I LIKE the way this blog is set up. I’d appreciate feedback on this, if you have some.

Either way, I won’t be posting at all if I don’t get to cooking! I have made a list of things I’d like to make and feature on Jenn Cooks in the future, so hopefully I will start checking those off soon! Just need a little free time and spare change

Moving on! Like I mentioned, I made these cookies way back in April and took them to a family gathering, probably Easter? See, it’s been so long, I don’t even remember! Either way, they received really good reviews! At least from those of us who like lemon. And they were super easy to make.

You’ll need: Lemon cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, 2 lemons, lemon extract, powdered sugar

Start by pouring the cake mix into a large bowl. Add two eggs.

1/3 cup vegetable oil

The zest from two lemons… hard to see, but it’s in there! (Quick note: remember zest your lemons first, then squeeze them for the juice!)

2 Tablespoons of lemon juice

Just in case there wasn’t enough lemon flavor for you, go ahead and add in 1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract.

Stir that all up.

Drop heaping teaspoonfuls into balls. There is no picture of this because this dough is very sticky and messy… it’s not like a traditional cookie dough. Roll those balls in powdered sugar and place on a cookie sheet.

Bake for about 10 minutes at 375 degrees, or until the edges are slightly brown. This was the first pan through the oven, so the edges are more brown than I liked. The others were pulled out of the oven a little sooner. Don’t worry, they were still quite tasty!

Lemon Burst Cookies
Source: Brown Eyed Baker

1 (18.25-ounce) package lemon cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
Zest of 2 lemons
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon lemon extract
1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
2. Pour cake mix into a large bowl. Stir in eggs, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and lemon extract until well blended.
3. Place confectioner’s sugar in a bowl.
4. Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of dough into balls and roll in confectioner’s sugar until lightly coated and place on baking sheet.
5. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool for 2-3 minutes on the cookie sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.