The Twelve Treats of Christmas: Holiday BonBons

This one's an oldie but goodie, pulled from the archives of the family cookbook, and my memory. Holiday BonBons were one of the Christmas cookies we made every year growing up, although we made them a little differently then. For one thing, we often used maraschino cherries (definitely still an option if you happen to like maraschino cherries... and all that red food coloring!). We would also often dye the frosting red and green, which was very festive, but also full of ... food coloring (I'm sensing a theme here).

To be honest, the food coloring isn't what keeps me from making these cookies the same way now. I just like the simple elegance of the white frosting, and the subtle flavor of the spices. Also, I love chocolate, but you already know that.

Food-Coloring-Free Holiday BonBons
1 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1 TBSP grated orange peel
2 1/2 cups flour
1 bag of Hershey's kisses, unwrapped (or 1 jar of maraschino cherries, each cherry cut in half)
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Frosting:
2 TBSP butter
2 TBSP eggnog
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar

Cream butter and add sugar. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla. Add flour and orange peel and mix. Your dough will be pretty stiff:


Pinch off a small portion of dough and roll it into a ball:


Press the Hershey's kiss, point down, into the ball of dough:


Wrap the remaining dough around the bottom of the Hershey's kiss:


Roll the dough again back into the ball shape:

Place the balls of dough 1.5 inches apart on greased baking sheets and bake 10-12 minutes or until the bottoms are golden. Just like the Cinnamon Pinwheels, the tops will probably not look quite done, but if the bottoms are golden, they are done.

Cool the cookies on a wire rack. Frost the cookies when they are completely cooled. Sprinkle the tops with freshly grated nutmeg.

To make the frosting, beat together all the ingredients until smooth. If you want you can even add a few drops of food coloring!

Besides switching the kisses for maraschino cherries, you can also make some other changes. I don't always have orange peel on hand, but I do have a jar of powdered lemon peel that I use in a pinch. It adds the touch of citrus flavor this recipe needs. Obviously, you can substitute any citrus peel you have for a similar effect. Also, you can substitute plain milk or cream for the eggnog in the frosting recipe, which is in fact what the original recipe calls for. Or, in keeping with the citrus idea, you could use orange juice.

Not the QUICKest recipe in my repertoire, that's for sure. The dough is nice and stiff so it doesn't need to be chilled, which does make it quicker than other similar recipes.

There is a lot of rolling and shaping and frosting, so I guess EASY wouldn't be the best way to describe it! However, the dough is very reliable, so anyone can easily make it.

The dough is CHEAP, but the Hershey's kisses are not. I was reminded why I never buy Hershey's candy (or other packaged candy): that stuff's expensive! It does go on sale, though, and coupons are available, so you can get it cheaper than the regular price.

HEALTHY? Not exactly. The dough doesn't have a lot of sugar, but that is made up for in the frosting, not to mention the chocolate. Remember to eat them in small quantities!