The key to a good peanut butter cookie is to make sure that it has a lot of peanut butter flavor. You can achieve this in a number of ways. One is by simply using a good, flavorful brand of peanut butter (always a good idea, actually). Another is to stuff the cookie with a peanut butter filling, or sandwich two cookies together with a smear of peanut butter. Adding peanuts will add crunch and highlight the nuttiness in the peanut butter, too. Yet another way is to use a peanut butter glaze, which is how I gave these tasty Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies a peanut buttery boost.
The cookies themselves are sweet and chewy, with a good peanut butter flavor to them. The oatmeal mixes very well with the flavor of the peanut butter. You might not know there was oatmeal in the cookies if no one mentioned it, but it does add a subtle oaty flavor that makes the cookies a little more addictive than a plainer cookie. The quick cooking oats keep the cookies tender and chewy.
But as I said before, the icing on the cookie is what takes these from good to great – for fans of peanut butter cookies, anyway! It’s a simple glaze of peanut butter mixed with a little bit of milk to make it drizzle-able. It couldn’t be any easier to make. Once it’s on, it is like doubling the peanut butter flavor in every bite. I used a plastic bag with the corner snipped off to pipe on my peanut butter glaze, but you could also just drizzle it on with the tines of a fork after dipping them in a small bowl of the glaze.
Don’t forget to serve these cookies with a big glass of milk.