Almond Kiss Cookies

Mid-February. Valentine's week. Hannah and I have not done Valentine's in twenty-five years — not formally, not the chocolates and roses, not the dinner out. We do a small thing. This year I made dinner — pan-seared venison tenderloin from the freezer, mashed sweet potatoes, kale, and a chocolate pudding made from scratch with cocoa and cream and a little chile, the way they do in the Yucatán. Two candles on the table. We ate. She read me a poem from a book she'd been keeping for it. I told her about my favorite memory of her from 2014, which was the first time she made bean bread in our kitchen, and how she'd gotten the temperature wrong and the bread came out dense and we ate it anyway. She laughed. She said: I remember. I said: it was good. She said: it was awful. I said: it was good because you made it. She kissed me. I cleared the plates.

Saturday Caleb enrolled in the cooking class. Spring semester, ten weeks, Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the Pryor community college. He paid the registration fee himself. He said: I'm a college student. I said: in the way that matters. He laughed. He said: in the way that matters. He brought me a print-out of the syllabus. The first three classes are knife skills and stocks. He said: I already make stocks. I said: you can make better stocks. He said: yeah. We talked about the difference between a stock made from raw bones versus roasted bones, and the difference between fish stock and chicken stock and beef stock, and I taught him an hour's worth of stock theory in the kitchen at lunch. He took notes.

The cohort is at week five. The first welds are turning into real work now. The deer-sculpture man's flat-stock practice is finished and he's started cutting forms. The bicycle student has begun brazing — slower than he wanted but on schedule. The knife student is working on his blank. The mailbox-post student is welding plates. The cohort is humming. I love when the cohort hums.

I called Macy. First call I've made to her in maybe a month. She answered on the second ring. She said: hey Uncle Jesse. I said: hey. I said: how's things. She said: fine. I said: are you. She said: mostly. I said: come out for a weekend. She said: when. I said: any weekend. She said: maybe in March. I said: come in March. She said: okay. I said: I love you. She said: love you too. I hung up. The intention I wrote on an envelope at New Year's — that was about Terry. The Macy thing is its own. The Macy thing is more present than I've been about. I'm fixing it.

Hannah kissed me after I said the bread was good because she made it — that’s the moment I keep coming back to. We didn’t need flowers or a reservation. We needed two candles and something honest. The chocolate pudding I made that night was rich and a little smoky from the chile, and it was right for the meal, but these Almond Kiss Cookies are what I’d set out on the table next time — simple, a little sweet, with that single chocolate center that says exactly what it needs to say without making a speech about it.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 32 min | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup finely chopped blanched almonds
1/4 cup granulated sugar (for rolling)
36 milk chocolate kiss candies, unwrapped

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat softened butter and 2/3 cup sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add almond extract and vanilla extract and beat to combine.
Mix in dry ingredients. Add flour, salt, and chopped almonds to the butter mixture. Stir until a soft dough comes together. If the dough is sticky, chill it for 10 minutes before shaping.
Shape the cookies. Scoop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls and roll into 1-inch balls. Roll each ball in the reserved 1/4 cup of granulated sugar to coat lightly.
Bake. Place balls about 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the bottoms are just golden and the tops are set but still pale.
Press in the kisses. Remove cookies from the oven. Working quickly while cookies are still warm, press one chocolate kiss firmly into the center of each cookie. The cookie will crack slightly around the edges — that’s right.
Cool. Let cookies cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. The chocolate will firm back up as they cool. Allow at least 20 minutes before stacking.

Nutrition (per serving)

Almond Kiss Cookies — The Kiss at the End of the Night