Cherry Rice Krispie Cookies

For our Dec. freezer meal swap we exchanged desserts as well as dinners and this lovely cookie dough was given to me by R. and the cookies were so good! My kids all love maraschino cherries so they thought they were awesome. The crunchy rice krispie outside and soft inside make these cookies so yummy!

Cherry Rice Krispie Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened
3 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup flour (plus 2 tablespoons for high altitude)
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
maraschino cherries, halved (red and green ones would be festive!)
rice krispies (1-2 cups)

Cream together margarine or butter, cream cheese, and sugar. Add almond extract and mix. In a separate bowl mix flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until a smooth dough forms. Cover dough with plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour (if the dough is too sticky to work with let it sit in the fridge longer).

Roll dough into 1 inch balls (I used my smallest cookie scoop to help me keep them uniform) and then roll in the rice krispies pressing the rice krispies into the dough. Press your thumb into the center of the dough ball, place a maraschino cherry half into the indent from your thumb. Bake on greased cookie sheets at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven, gently press cherries down into cookies, and allow cookies to rest on cookie sheets for a few minutes then remove cookies to wire racks to cool.