When was your first kiss?

If you Google “first kiss” the first link returned is a wiki about how to have a first kiss. As engaged as I am in the Internet and social media it never occurred to me that while my friends and I spent our early teen years sneaking peeks at Sex for Dummies in between giggles at Barnes & Noble, today’s high schoolers might be seeking the same information on search engines.

I didn’t have my first kiss until the day of my seventeenth birthday (some might say I was a late bloomer but I just call it “selective”). I wish I could say it was a kiss worth waiting for but it was a little awkward and nothing like I’d expected. It took a few tries before I was wholly used to the feeling of kissing, of being kissed.

Even though the first kiss is a little scary, the kisses after that are usually pretty nice. And as cliched as this segue might be, you can never go wrong with Hershey’s Kisses.

I saw this recipe only few days before I was planning to have a few Chicago friends over for cocktails and appetizers (including, but not quite limited to: baked brie and spinach-artichoke dip) and knew it was the perfect cookie to serve at a pre-holiday gathering.

Mint Chocolate Kiss Crinkles (from Recipe Girl)

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 cups granulated white sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. peppermint extract

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tsp. green colored sugar (optional)

bag of mint truffle flavored Hershey’s Kisses

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt; set aside.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, and eggs until well mixed. Whisk in extracts.

3. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients just until combined. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Roll dough into 1/2 Tablespoon balls. Roll balls into mixture of powdered sugar/green sugar. Place on cookie sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes, until cookies crackle and dough doesn’t look raw.

5. While cookies are baking, unwrap the kisses and make some room in your refrigerator or freezer for the cookie sheets. When the cookies come out of the oven, immediately place a kiss in the center of each cookie and press lightly.

NOTE: The kisses will start to get melty, so it’s best if you are able to place the cookie sheet (with the kiss cookies still on it) directly into the freezer or refrigerator until the kisses can cool off and set up.
I did this, but apparently not fast enough because about 2/3 of my cookies yielded melted kisses. I was told that the melted-kiss cookies tasted even better because they were easier to bite into.

Yield: About 60 cookies

Tell me about your first kiss! Was it everything you thought it would be?