This post is going to be prefaced with a disclaimer, something it’s never been necessary to do until now.
I’m breaking the cardinal rule of Christmas, and making something with peppermint before Thanksgiving has even happened. Shame on me.
*Gasp*
I know, right? Feel free to roll your eyes at me, because as soon as I made these I rolled my eyes at myself.
For the last week or so I have been searching unabated for the unicorn of the Hershey Kiss family – the Pumpkin Spice Kiss. With an epic recipe waiting to be made I adventured into six stores and found zero Pumpkin Spice Hershey’s.
*Drops head in shame*
 I finally gave in an bought a bag of the Candy Cane Kisses as some sort of sad consolation candy. But it wasn’t quite the same. And now I proclaim to you, my search will continue until I can resource myself a bag of these mythical candies.
So, for now – bear with me while I share a recipe that was a pleasant surprise and started getting me into a pre-mature Christmas Spirit. As I scarf one down now, I can personally attest to their deliciousness.
Suddenly, I’m okay with the Christmas spirit rising early.
For my grocery list I included:
~ 1 3/4 cup Flour
~ 1 stick Butter, softened
~ 1/3 cup STRONG coffee
1/4 cup grounds to 1/2 cup boiling water
~ 1 egg
~1 tsp Vanilla
~ 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
~ 3 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
~ Sugar, for rolling cookies
~ 20-24 Candy Cane Hershey Kisses
I began with making a strong mini-pot of coffee. For years, I’ve maintained that the french press is the epitome of coffee makers. It’s simple, quick and always brews a flavorful cup of coffee.
As the hot water steeped the coffee, I got a move on whisking together my dry ingredients, setting them aside for later.
Into my handy dandy Kitchen Aid kitchen-baby went the butter, vanilla, egg mixing together until airy and fluffy.  The coffee was slowly beat in, last being the dry ingredients.
Once everything was combined, the bowl was placed into the fridge to cool off for about 20 minutes. In that time I heated up the oven to 350 degrees and dollops of dough were rolled into about 1-inch balls. After each was created and then rolled into sugar, they were placed back into the fridge for another 20 minutes to make sure they’d hold their shape.
Once baked for about 9-10 minutes a pan, a gorgeous striped Kiss was plunked right into the middle of each cookie.
But don’t forget – Do NOT move, touch, jostle or shake the cookies as they cool or else your Kisses will turn to puddles of melted goo. I would remove them from their pan first then go plunk the Kisses into the middle. Save yourself that terrifying transfer of cooling kissed cookies.
And there you have it – Peppermint Mocha Thumprints. Ready for Christmas, but really delicious anytime.
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Peppermint Mocha Thumbprint Cookies - homemadehome.com