The Secret

I volunteered to bring cookies for our hospital volunteer appreciation coffee and baked peanut butter blossoms this morning.  I haven't made these since last Christmas season I think.  The secret to these cookies is to not freeze them once they are baked.  If you look at the photo, the kisses in the bowl are dull but the kisses on the cookies are glossy and shiny.  If you took a knife to the kisses on the cookies, that chocolate would spread like soft butter.  The candies are placed on the hot cookies once they are taken out of the oven and they soften up and almost melt.  Once the chocolate firms up again, they remain a little glossy and softer to the teeth than they'd be right out of the bag.  Essentially you are tempering the chocolate and if you freeze these to store them, the chocolate loses it's temper and becomes dull and hard again.  The same thing happens with chocolate chip cookies.  I love a soft cookie and there's nothing worse than a soft cookie with a hard wad of chocolate that you have to gnaw and shave with your teeth.  The only trouble though...I started baking a little late this morning and now I'm worried they won't be firm/set enough to stack in a container.  I might have to bring them all spread out in my covered sheet pan.  I'll keep the ones for the volunteers looking nice, but if the extras I baked to fortify myself and my coworkers get a little smeared, they'll taste just as good!  ;)