Tasty Treat Friday!

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

3 cups old-fashioned oats

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup peanut butter (chunky or creamy)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

9 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks

In a medium bowl, whisk together oats, flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, peanut butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minutes after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add dry ingredients, mixing just until blended. Stir in chocolate.

If you have time, chill dough for 2 hours, or overnight. (chilling the dough gives more evenly shaped cookies)

If the dough is not chilled, drop rounded tablespoons 2 inches apart on baking sheets. If the dough IS chilled, scoop up round tablespoons, roll the balls between your palms and place them 2 inches apart on the sheets. Press the chilled balls gently until they are about 1/2 inch think.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 13-15 minutes.

Yields: 5 dozen

Alright its my review and tip time!

These cookies are beautiful. I did do the chill for two hours and it was a breeze to get gorgeous round cookies. The will need to set up for a couple minutes on the cookie sheet before you try to move them to a cooling rack. They just need to firm so they won't crumble apart. They pretty sweet, and it seemed like the peanut butter flavor wasn't as strong as I thought it would be. I didn't use bittersweet chocolate since that's not something that I really like, I just used plain chocolate chips (milk). So perhaps the sweetness would be cut down a bit if you used the correct chocolate. They are delicious though, and wonderful with cold milk.  They are a oatmeal cookie with the taste of cinnamon which I love. Next time I will be adding some more peanut butter and less cinnamon and see what I can come up with. :)

OK a tip is that you can definitely freeze these. After I chilled the dough I just rolled the rounds and flattened them, and put them on a plate and froze them for an hour and then put them in a freezer Ziploc bag and they will keep for 2 months in the freezer. Just take them out, put them on a greased cookie sheet and bake.

Definitely try them when your in a mood for an oatmeal cookie. You won't be disappointed! :)