My new favorite toy lately has got to be my mini muffin pan. I did not own one up until a couple of months ago and I swear, I have gone “mini crazy”. I don’t know how I ever lived without one. It’s like the greatest invention ever all of a sudden. I’d always wanted one, but for some odd reason never felt that it was horribly high on my priority list. Until. Until I saw it on Closeout at the local grocery store for $2.99. Well, for $2.99, it scooted its little tailend right UP the priority list.

I mean, haven’t you gone to parties and had those little mini quiches or those little mini pecan pies (pecan tassies, I think they call them – yum) and thought how dainty the food looked? When you walk by the tray and you grab one or two of these little things, you don’t feel like such a glutton. . . because they’re tiny and dainty. What people don’t see is that I walked by the tray 47 times. No one ever sees more than one or two in my presence . . . because, well, I’m dainty like that.

What? You don’t believe me?

I wouldn’t either. There’s nothing dainty about me except for my mini muffin pan thingies that I make. Like last night. Last night I made Pecan Mini Kisses Cups. Aren’t they just adorable?

And what’s not to like? You’ve got pecans and you’ve got chocolate Kisses – both equally delicious. That’s GOT to be a winning combination, I thought. And I was right! Seriously, if you have a mini muffin pan, you should make these. HUGE hit, I promise. And if you don’t have a mini muffin pan, I added one to my Amazon store over to the right so you don’t have to search high and low. Then you too could make these. This is all you need:

PECAN MINI KISSES CUPS

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
1 pkg (3oz) cream cheese, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 Tbl butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
72 Hershey’s Mini Kisses brand Milk Chocolates, divided
1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped pecans

In medium bowl, beat 1/2 cup softened butter and cream cheese until blended. Add flour; beat well. Cover and refrigerate about 1 hour or until firm enough to handle.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a small bowl, stir together egg, brown sugar, 1 Tbl. melted butter and vanilla until well blended.

Shape chilled dough into 24 balls (1-inch each). Place balls in ungreased mini muffin cups and press onto bottom and up sides of cups. Place 2 chocolate pieces in each cup. Spoon about 1 tsp pecans over chocolate. Fill each cup with egg mixture.

Bake 25 minutes or until filling is set. Remove from oven and lightly press 1 chocolate piece into center of each. Cool in pan on wire rack.

They are SO GOOD!

This is the recipe as it’s written in my latest Hershey’s cookbook, however, there are a few things about this recipe that I altered for convenience. My grocery stores do not carry the 3 oz packages of cream cheese, so I chopped an 8 oz package of cream cheese in half. Four ounces is close enough for me. Second, I went to three different chains of grocery stores around here and I could NOT find the Mini Hershey Kisses. (I looked Hershey people! Couldn’t FIND them!)

THIS is the bag that eluded me so. So I used chocolate chips instead; the Milk Chocolate chips (not the semi-sweet chocolate chips). They were still Hershey’s, just smaller, so I used four inside each cup instead of two. Not having the EXACT ingredients did not stop me from trying these puppies. And they were fantastic! Alterations and all.

So if you’re looking for something to take to a Thanksgiving dinner or any kind of party over the holidays that’s delicious, out-of-the-ordinary and SURE to impress, make these. Everybody will be oohing and aahing for the recipe.

Do YOU have a recipe that guarantees ooh’s and aah’s at holiday get-togethers?