Easy and classic peanut butter blossoms with a healthy twist that remind you of childhood and make for the perfect treat at a cookie exchange! Slightly sweetened with maple syrup, they’re the perfect healthy treat for Santa too!

One of my favorite cookies growing up were peanut butter blossoms. Man, do these take me back to childhood! In fact, I was a peanut butter and chocolate fanatic- every day was a peanut butter sandwich (no jelly) and dessert was a huge spoonful of peanut butter sprinkled with chocolate chips. Oh, and no Halloween was complete unless I traded all of my other candies for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!

These cookies are soft, chewy, and full of peanut butter-y goodness. They’re beyond easy as well, so let’s get right to it! This is my first real go at using a traditional flour (instead of a paleo-style or gluten-free flour like in these ones), and let me tell you, it’s harder than it looks!

The first round, I refrigerated the peanut butter blossom dough, which is not the way to go. These cookies do not need to be refrigerated, which makes them all the more easier (and faster) to make! I also added a little too much flour (got flour happy, what can ya do!), so I took it down a notch, added more peanut butter, and voilà! It still made 24 cookies, and 24 perfect ones, I might add!

For the peanut butter, I suggest using a single ingredient butter like this one: no salt added, no sugars, and smooth as can be. That way, you can really control how salty and how sweet you want these cookies to be. I suggest adding only 1/3 cup of maple syrup in there (and yes, do use maple syrup! It has a really nice flavor to it!), but please feel free to adjust (just a smidge) based on your taste preferences! Same goes for the sea salt 😉 For me, I prefer my peanut butter blossoms mostly sweet with a little saltiness to them!

Now for the Hershey’s kisses.

You can’t have peanut butter blossoms without the kisses! Yes, of course, you can purchase your own, but I typically like a really really rich chocolate (aka 100%), so I make my own! To do so, I purchased these Hershey’s kiss molds and a pouch of my favorite organic Pascha 100% Chocolate Chips. First, I melted the chocolate chips over the stovetop (you can also microwave them- about 45 seconds, stir, then another 20 seconds, and stir). Then, I spooned about 1 tablespoon of chocolate into each mold and froze them for about 30 minutes. I kept these in the freezer while the cookies were cooling too, and then as soon as they were plopped onto the cookies, I stuck them right back into the freezer! Easy peezy!

I hope you enjoy! Peanut butter blossoms are truly one of my favorites, and honestly, I haven’t had them in ages- had to go through my own little health journey to realize that I can indeed have peanut butter, be happy, and be healthy! And so can you!

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