This Red Velvet Peanut Butter Blossoms recipe, a holiday and Valentine’s Day favorite, is soft and chewy peanut butter cookies with a Hershey’s kiss in the center, made with red food coloring for a festive touch. I also have a Classic Peanut Butter Blossom Recipe you will love!
Ingredients & Substitutions
Butter: I prefer unsalted butter in this recipe, as well as in many of my baked goods. It allows you, the baker, to control the amount of salt needed for the recipe. If using salted butter, omit the pinch of kosher salt in the dough.
Peanut Butter: Both creamy and chunky peanut butter would work in this recipe. The chunky peanut butter will add more texture to the cookies.
Food Coloring: Start with one teaspoon of red gel food coloring, which is more vibrant than liquid food color. No matter which variety you use, you can always add more until you get the shade of red you are going for.
Sanding Sugar: Sanding sugar is a type of decorative sugar utilized in baking to add sparkle and texture to desserts. It is coarser and larger than regular granulated sugar, making it a popular ingredient for decorating cakes, cookies, and pastries. If you don’t have sanding sugar, you could use any coarse sugar or colored decorating sugar. Granulated sugar would also work in a pinch.
Hershey’s Kisses: The traditional peanut butter blossoms are topped with Hershey’s chocolate kisses. However, if you don’t have any on hand, add a few chocolate chips to the tops of the cookies or miniature peanut butter cups. Rolos, with their soft, chewy caramel center, is another delicious choice.
Why are my Red Velvet Peanut Butter Blossoms Flat?
A flat cookie could be the result of the butter being too warm. To avoid this you can try adding cold butter to your stand mixer and beating until creamy, about 4-5 minutes. You could chill the dough before rolling in the sanding sugar or you could also chill the cookies for about 10 minutes in the freezer right before baking.
How to Bake a Chewy Cookie
This is a soft cookie that is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. To ensure your cookies are chewy you can follow these tips:
- Don’t overmix the cookie batter.
- Avoid over-flouring. Be sure to measure carefully.
- Refrigerate the dough. (It is not necessary, but you certainly could do this.)
- Underbake by a couple of minutes (my favorite option).
- Use a light cookie sheet (dark colors will heat faster).
Can I Make These Cookies Ahead of Time?
Yes! Here are the steps to freezing the dough until ready to bake.
- Prepare the peanut butter blossom cookie dough according to the recipe instructions.
- Scoop the dough into balls and coat with red sanding sugar.
- Place the dough balls on a cookie sheet and place them in the freezer for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, transfer the dough balls to a freezer-safe plastic bag, label it, and store it in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- When ready to bake, place the frozen dough balls on a cookie sheet in a single layer and let thaw for about an hour.
- After the dough balls have thawed, bake as instructed.
Storing Red Velvet Peanut Butter Blossoms
Baked peanut butter blossom cookies can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 5 days. To keep them soft and chewy, place a sheet of parchment or wax paper between the layers of cookies. For longer storage, freeze in an airtight container or freezer-safe plastic bag for up to 3 months.
Red Velvet Peanut Butter Blossoms
Ingredients
- ½ cup (1 stick / 113 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- ¾ cup (193.5 g) creamy peanut butter
- 1 ⅓ cups (267 g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 teaspoon red gel food coloring
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
- 1 ½ cups (187.5 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 pinch kosher salt
- ⅓ cup (67 g) red sanding sugar
- 1 bag Hershey's Kisses, unwrapped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F. LIne a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, add butter, peanut butter, and sugar. Mix for 2 minutes on medium speed. Reduce to low speed and add in egg, milk, vanilla, and red food coloring. Mix for about 30 seconds to incorporate. Then, increase the mixer speed to medium-high and blend until light and fluffy.
- In a separate bowl sift cocoa, flour, baking soda, and salt. With the stand mixer on slow speed, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until just combined.
- Remove the mixer bowl from the stand. Using a 1-tablespoon scoop, drop dough onto the lined baking sheet. Roll each scoop of dough into a ball.
- Pour red sanding sugar onto small plate or bowl.
- Roll each dough ball in red sanding sugar and place it back onto the prepared cookie sheet, leaving about 2 inches between each ball of dough. (If you prefer the cookies extra chewy, chill for 10 minutes in the freezer before baking.)
- Bake for 7-8 minutes.
- When the cookies are done baking, remove them from the oven and immediately press a chocolate Kiss into the center of each cookie. The cookie should crack around the edges.
- Allow cookies to cool to room temperature before serving.
Video
Did you make this recipe?
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If you are looking for more Christmas Cookies I’ve got you covered! Be sure to try my BEST Apple Crisp Recipe as well as my Snickerdoodles and Sugar Cookie Recipe.
Pink Peanut Butter Blossoms
To make different shades of these blossoms, there are a couple of different things you can do!
- Add less food coloring to your batter. This will result in lighter shades of red, turning into pink.
- Do not add food coloring to the batter and simply add the pink sanding sugar to the outside of the cookie.
Both options are quite beautiful, as you can see above! <3
These are just wonderful! I appreciate the tip about chilling the cookies before baking. It made two and a half dozen, btw.
Thank you!
My cookies did not turn out this red. They looked browny/red. How do you get them that red? I used extra die. The die the recipe asked for only made the batter pink. Delicious cookies though!!
I used dark cocoa powder. Could that be the reason mine are brownish red and not red like yours?
Oh my gosh! I love this!! I doubled this recipe to make a bunch of these for a cookie tray for my children’s teachers…I was able to get six dozen out of the batch. And they are sooooo delish!!!!
Made these. LOVE these. Chewy with a little crunch. So pretty too. Thank you!
Hi, if I don’t wish to bake from scratch, can this recipe be converted from red velvet CAKE mix? I’ve seen other cookie recipes made with cake mixes.
Will make these soon .look so good n fun for party
Only saw 2 recipes.would Like to see more I like making cookies especially for holidays.
I just made these as a test for an upcoming cookie exchange. I think they were amazing but my family said there was a bit of an “after taste” – a little like chemicals. Wondering if that’s from too much red food coloring? Hoping someone can help answer that.
Also – I didn’t have chocolate kisses on hand – I had white chocolate with candy cane pieces and used those – AMAZING! The peppermint flavor was a good combination.
Never heard ofsanding sugar where do i look for that?
Every grocery store has it.