Hershey to attend cookie conference in Washington County
Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter
Rob Krency bags an order of peanut butter blossoms Friday at Krency’s Bakery in Washington.
Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter
The tips on Hershey Kisses like the ones atop these peanut butter blossom cookies won’t be perfect again until later this year.
The Hershey Co. is about to “kiss and make up” with cookie bakers who were fuming last holiday season over missing tips on its classic chocolate Kisses.
The Pennsylvania company plans to attend the Wedding Cookie Table College in North Strabane Township next month to taste test a new recipe using miniature Hershey’s Kisses, said Laura Magone of Monongahela, an organizer of the event.
“Hershey is going to talk because of all of this stuff,” Magone said, meaning the company will be among the speakers at the college, which attracted 325 bakers at the first such event in November.
“The bakers were mad, but we’re not on bad terms with Hershey,” Magone said.
She said the company “reached out in December and said, ‘We want to make the bakers happy.”’
The Hershey’s Kisses are the centerpiece of a traditional holiday cookie known as the peanut butter blossom, which is also typically found at Pittsburgh-area weddings on tables featuring homemade cookies.
Complaints about the deformed tips went viral on Magone’s Facebook page named The Wedding Cookie Table Community, which now has more than 16,000 members.
The Hershey Co., which has said it corrected the manufacturing problem that had lobbed off the tips on the kisses, reached out to Magone offering to donate products to her Facebook community.
Magone said she politely refused the offer because the products would have been “cumbersome to distribute.”
She invited the company to the next “cookie college” and it accepted.
Hershey will have on display samples of a new cookie recipe in three varieties using different flavors of miniature kisses, and encourage college attendees to vote on their favorite one, Magone said. The recipe for the winning cookie will later appear on a Hershey label, “which is pretty cool,” she said.
Local bakeries are still creating the peanut butter blossoms using the kisses with missing tips, Magone said. The improved kisses were not expected to reach the market until later this year, she said.
Hershey spokeswoman Anna Lingeris could not be reached for comment.
The cookie college event will begin with registration at noon May 5 in DoubleTree by Hilton at Meadowlands, 340 Racetrack Road.
Attendance will be limited to 500 people, with only 100 tickets left to sell. To purchase tickets, visit https://wedding-cookie-college.ticketleap.com/wedding-cookie-college/.