Peanut Butter Chocolate Heart Cookies

I'm trying to take better pictures so I've read up on food photography and also got photo shop on the ipad.  Sometimes it is hard to capture the deliciousness with a camera but hopefully my developing photography and editing skills will help.

This is the Peanut Butter Blossom Cookie but made with Hershey's heart shape chocolates (made for Valentine's day) instead of Hershey's kisses.  This different shape of chocolate has taken these five stars cookies to 6 stars.  Really??  Yeah... I know.  Way good!  I still think the kisses make the cookies look super cute but that tall point always made it a little difficult to bite into.  The flat chocolate heart makes savoring this cookie with as many bites as one can take a cinch!  (and I think the size of the heart is bigger than the kiss so more chocolate!)  After valentines day Hershey's will only have its kisses so I'll try Dove chocolates.

Now the key to making these cookies super good is to not over cook them.  Baking time depending on your oven and how big you roll the balls of dough.  I set my timer for 8 minutes and then check them.  I usually end up cooking them 9 minutes total.  You know when they are done when they begin to slightly crack (the large cracking you see in the pictures happens when you push the chocolate in).  It is also important that you press the chocolates in the cookies right away while the cookies are still on the baking sheet.  Remove cookies onto a wire rack a few minutes later.  (If you press the chocolate in while on the wire rack you'll push the cookie into the rack making a grid impression on the bottom of the cookies.)

–Melanie