Easter is coming and when I saw these cookies, I smiled. They looke like Easter eggs or spring flowers. And who doesn’t love Hershey’s Kisses, especially when they come with cookies? This recipe is a little more work invovled than many I share but I think they’d totally be worth the effort in an Easter basket or displayed on the table.

Hershey Kisses Springtime Thumbprint Cookies

Ingredients & Directions
Yields: 36 cookies
Prep: 1 hr. 
Bake: 9 min. 
Total: 1 Hr. 9 Min.

Ingredients
36 HERSHEY’S KISSES Milk Chocolates
6 Tbsps butter or margarine, softened
1⁄3 cup packed light brown sugar
1⁄4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1⁄4 tsp baking soda
1⁄4 tsp salt
 food color in desired color or colors
 decorating sugars to match cookie color
1⁄3 cup ready-to-spread vanilla frosting or your favorite homemade vanilla frosting

Directions
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Remove wrappers from 36 HERSHEY’S KISSES Milk Chocolates.

2. Beat 6 tbsps butter, 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup granulated sugar in large bowl until well blended. Add 1 egg, 1 tbsp milk and 1 tsp vanilla. Beat until well blended. Stir together 2 cups flour, 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1/4 tsp salt; add to butter mixture, blending thoroughly.

3. Divide dough into separate bowl for each color desired. Add desired food coloring to each bowl, mixing until color of dough is uniform. Form 36 equal balls (about 1 inch). Roll each ball in the matching sugar color. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Gently press thumb into ball forming indentation.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Cool slightly; remove from pan to wire rack. Press thumb again into each indentation if needed. Cool completely.

5. Divide and tint 1/3 cup vanilla frosting to match cookie colors. Place about 1/2 teaspoon vanilla frosting in each indentation. Press 1 HERSHEY’S KISSES Milk Chocolate onto each cookie.

Tip: Frosting alternative: Instead of matching frosting color with cookie colors, try mixing things up like yellow frosting on purple cookie, pink on green, purple on blue, etc.

Here’s the LINK to the Hershey website in case you want more info about the recipe. In looking for a character and a book to share, I realized that I don’t have Easter festivities in any of my books. I came up with Annie, Sean/Boomer’s mate from WOLF’S MOON. She’s like the “neighborhood mom”–always baking cookies for the kids. And teaching Hannah how to cook. Well, attempting to teach Hannah, anyway. If you haven’t read WOLF MOON, why not? And if you haven’t, I’d suggest skipping straight to MOONSTRUCK: LIES. If you grab the compendium books, you get more bang for your buck–ie. more books plus bonus material that is only published in the compendiums and at a lower cost that buying each book individually. All you have to do is click on either pic or any of the titles and you’ll zip over to Books2Read where you can find your favorite on-line book seller. What about y’all? Anyone have a favorite Easter/Spring cookie?