Kiss Cookies (Buttery Cookies with Chocolate Kisses)

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These kiss cookies use just four ingredients – butter, sugar, egg yolks, and flour – to create one of the simplest, most satisfying cookies you can make. The dough comes together in minutes, each cookie bakes in about 12 minutes, and you press a Hershey Kiss right into the center the moment they come out of the oven. The chocolate softens against the warm cookie and sets as it cools, giving you a tender, buttery bite with a perfect little peak of chocolate on top.

We make these year-round, but they hold special meaning in our family during Holy Week. On the Wednesday before Easter – the day that marks Judas’s betrayal of Jesus with a kiss – we bake these cookies and deliver them to friends and neighbors. Though Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss, we use “kisses” to show love instead. We pair each bag of cookies with a note explaining the tradition. It opens conversations, it surprises people, and it turns a simple cookie into something that carries real meaning during the Easter season.

Even outside of Holy Week, these cookies earn their spot in any baker’s rotation. They look polished and impressive on a cookie tray but take almost no effort to make. The dough requires no mixer – just a bowl and a spoon. There are no complicated steps, no chilling time, no decorating beyond pressing in the Kiss. Kids love helping because the recipe has built-in fun: rolling the dough into balls and unwrapping all those Kisses (and sneaking a few, which we pretend not to notice).

This recipe makes 40 to 50 cookies, which sounds like a lot until you start handing them out. Trust me – make the full batch. You’ll want extras.

Why These Kiss Cookies Stand Out

Most kiss cookie recipes online use peanut butter as the base – those are called peanut butter blossoms, and they’re a completely different cookie. Ours skip the peanut butter entirely and use a simple butter cookie base instead. The result tastes cleaner and lighter. The butter flavor comes through without competing with anything, and the chocolate Kiss on top provides all the richness you need. If you or anyone in your family has a peanut allergy, these are the kiss cookies you’ve been looking for.

The egg yolks (no whites) make the dough tender and slightly crumbly in the best way – like a shortbread that holds together just enough. Each cookie bakes into a golden, compact little round that is sturdy enough to hold the Kiss but soft enough to melt in your mouth when you bite in. They don’t spread much, they don’t puff up, and they look almost identical coming out of the oven to how they looked going in. That predictability makes them great for baking with kids or for anyone who wants a consistent, reliable result every time.

The simplicity of this recipe also makes it incredibly versatile. Swap the Hershey Kisses for Hugs (the striped white and milk chocolate ones) for a different look. Use dark chocolate Kisses for a richer flavor. Press in a Rolo for a caramel twist. Or skip the chocolate entirely and dust the cookies with powdered sugar for a simple butter cookie. The base dough works with whatever you want to put on top.

What You Need

Butter: One cup (two sticks), at room temperature. The butter needs to be soft enough to cream with the sugar by hand. Take it out of the fridge about an hour before you start. If you forget, cut it into small pieces and let it sit for 20 minutes – it will soften faster. Do not microwave it. Melted butter changes the texture of the cookie entirely.

Sugar: Half a cup of granulated sugar. These cookies lean buttery rather than sweet, which lets the chocolate Kiss provide the sweetness. The lower sugar also prevents the cookies from spreading too much in the oven.

Egg yolks: Three large egg yolks, at room temperature. Yolks only – no whites. The yolks add richness and fat without the water content that whites bring, which keeps the cookies tender and slightly crumbly. Save the whites for our coconut macaroons – they use four egg whites and the two recipes pair perfectly as a baking day project.

Flour: Two and a quarter cups of all-purpose flour. Spoon and level for the most accurate measurement. Too much flour makes the cookies dry and crumbly. Too little and they spread into flat discs that won’t hold a Kiss.

Hershey Kisses: One bag. Unwrap them all before you start baking so they’re ready to press in the moment the cookies come out of the oven. You need the cookies to be hot so the chocolate base softens slightly and anchors the Kiss to the cookie. If you wait too long, the Kiss won’t stick. Assign this job to the kids – they love it and it keeps them busy while you handle the oven.

How to Make Kiss Cookies

Cream the butter and sugar. Preheat your oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, mix the softened butter and sugar together until creamy and smooth. You can do this by hand with a wooden spoon or spatula – no mixer needed. Beat it vigorously for about 2 minutes until the mixture lightens in color and looks fluffy.

Add the egg yolks. Drop in the three egg yolks and mix until fully combined. The dough will turn golden from the yolks and look smooth and glossy.

Add the flour. Add the flour and mix thoroughly until the dough comes together and no dry spots remain. The dough will be thick and slightly crumbly but should hold together when you press it. If it feels too dry to roll into balls, add a teaspoon of softened butter. If it feels sticky, add a tablespoon of flour.

Shape and bake. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and place them on an ungreased baking sheet. Leave about an inch between each cookie – they barely spread, so you can fit a lot on one sheet. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes until the edges turn lightly golden. The centers may still look slightly pale, and that is fine – they firm up as they cool.

Press in the Kisses. Pull the cookies from the oven and immediately press one unwrapped Hershey Kiss into the center of each hot cookie. Push it down gently but firmly – you want the base of the Kiss to sink slightly into the soft cookie so it stays anchored as it cools. The chocolate will look shiny and slightly softened at first, then firm up as the cookie cools completely. Transfer to cooling racks and let them sit until the chocolate sets, about 20 to 30 minutes.

Tips for Perfect Kiss Cookies

Unwrap all the Kisses before baking. This sounds obvious, but it matters. You need to press the Kisses into the cookies while they’re still hot from the oven. If you’re fumbling with foil wrappers while the cookies cool on the sheet, you’ll miss your window and the Kisses won’t stick. Unwrap the entire bag first, line them up, and you’ll move fast enough to get every cookie topped before they cool.

Press the Kisses in immediately. The cookies need to be hot for the chocolate base to sink in and anchor. If you wait even 5 minutes too long, the cookies firm up and the Kiss just sits on top without gripping. Pull the sheet from the oven, work quickly down the rows, and press each Kiss firmly into the center. You have about 2 to 3 minutes before the window closes.

Use room temperature butter and yolks. Cold butter won’t cream properly by hand, and cold yolks won’t incorporate smoothly into the dough. Set both out an hour before you start. If the butter is still too firm to mix easily, it’s not ready.

Don’t overbake. Twelve minutes is the sweet spot for most ovens. The edges should turn light golden while the centers stay pale. They continue to firm up on the baking sheet as they cool. If you bake them until the centers look done in the oven, they’ll be dry and crumbly by the time they cool down.

Make kiss cookies and macaroons on the same day. This recipe uses 3 egg yolks. Our coconut macaroons use 4 egg whites. Crack 4 eggs, separate them, and bake both recipes in one session. No wasted eggs, two completely different cookies, and your cookie tray just got twice as impressive.

Our Holy Week Tradition

During Holy Week, these cookies take on a deeper meaning for our family. We bake them on Wednesday – the day that marks the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, who identified Him to the soldiers with a kiss. It’s one of the most painful moments in the Easter story, and we use these cookies to flip that moment on its head. Though Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss, we choose to use “kisses” to show love instead.

We bag up the cookies, attach a note explaining the tradition, and deliver them to friends, neighbors, and anyone we want to reach during Easter week. Some years we leave them on doorsteps anonymously. Other years we hand-deliver them with a conversation. Either way, a simple cookie opens a door that a card or a text message never could. People receive something homemade and personal, and they learn something meaningful about the Easter story at the same time.

If you don’t have time to bake, buy a bag of Hershey Kisses and leave them on someone’s doorstep with a note. The gesture matters more than the recipe. But if you do bake them – and I hope you will – the act of making something by hand and giving it away carries a weight that store-bought never quite matches.

Our Holy Week Activity Book walks families through each day of Holy Week with activities, recipes, and scripture. The kiss cookies tradition is part of Wednesday’s activities, alongside our Italian Easter bread and our fresh herb pasta (Palm Sunday pasta) earlier in the week. Together, they turn the entire week into a hands-on, faith-centered experience for the whole family.

Storing and Sharing Kiss Cookies

Store these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. The butter base keeps them tender for days. They also freeze well – let the chocolate set completely, then layer them between sheets of wax paper in a freezer-safe container. They thaw in about 20 minutes at room temperature.

Kiss cookies make beautiful gifts because they look polished without any decorating skill. The Kiss on top does all the visual work for you. Bag them in cellophane, tie with a ribbon, and you have a homemade gift that looks like it came from a bakery. For Valentine’s Day, use Kisses with red or pink foil and package them in a small box with tissue paper. For Christmas, add them to your holiday cookie tray alongside our ricotta cookies, Italian sprinkle cookies, and Italian wedding cookies.

These cookies work for almost any occasion because the base is simple and the Kiss makes them instantly recognizable. They disappear fast at parties, they travel well in lunchboxes, and they make people smile every single time. Sometimes the simplest recipes are the ones people remember the most.

This recipe pairs beautifully with our Holy Week Activity Book, which guides families through each day of Holy Week with activities, recipes, and scriptural accounts. The kiss cookies tradition is featured as part of Wednesday’s activities. For more family recipes, our Roots of Sicily cookbook has 167 authentic recipes and 139 family stories passed down through four generations.