Peanut Butter Oatmeal Pies

When I first set out for something to make, I had my heart set on homemade Nutter Butters.  Don't ask me why, I'm pretty sure I heard the words Nutter Butter in passing (since people everywhere talk about Nutter Butters on a daily basis) and I immediately started wanting some.  But since I refuse to buy store bought cookies (unless their purpose is to be smashed and used for a pie crust), I intended to make my own.

In my head, I was thinking some sort of peanut butter shortbread with a peanut butter buttercream filling.  Well, I couldn't find a recipe for peanut butter shortbread, or for any cookie that had a peanut butter buttercream filling.  So I made do.

I found this recipe for Bouchon Bakery's Nutter Butters (Bouchon's is a popular place in NYC evidently) and while it wasn't exactly what I was anticipating, it was not disappointing.

The cookie is more of an oatmeal cookie with peanut butter.  Not that I'm complaining, I love soft oatmeal cookies.  They remind me of the packaged Oatmeal Cream Pies that Little Debbie makes, only peanut butter flavored.

Rather than following their recipe to a "T", I filled these oatmeal puppies with my very own peanut butter buttercream. Truth be told, I still had buttercream in the freezer from my cookie cupcakes, so I just used that and added peanut butter to it.  

Let me tell you. These cookies are not for the faint of heart.  4 sticks of butter AND peanut butter? The dough was sinful and we all know I love cookie dough more than the actual baked cookie, so I had to bake these up as fast as I could.

A few tweaks that I made to the recipe (other than using buttercream for the filling), I did not use chopped peanuts in the cookies. Instead, I had chunky peanut butter on hand, so I went with that. Forget it, that was only one tweak.  

Now I'm packaging these guys up for the hubs to take to work.  Get ready, boys!

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Pies

adapted from Bouchon Bakery's Nutter Butters

For the cookie dough:

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

4 tsp baking soda

4 sticks butter (room temp)

2/3 cup crunchy peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup packed light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups old fashioned oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix flour, baking powder, and baking soda in separate bowl.  In a mixer, beat together butter and peanut butter.  Add sugars and beat for 4 minutes on medium speed.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined. Slowly add in flour mixture until combined. Stir in oats. 

Drop onto cookie sheet (I went with about a round teaspoonful size---they spread).  Bake 7-10 minutes or until lightly browned.  Allow to cool and fill with buttercream.

For the peanut butter buttercream, I used about a third of this recipe for Very Vanilla Buttercream and added 2/3 cup creamy peanut butter. Placed in ziploc bag, snipped the tip and applied to half of the cookies.  

You can also go to the original recipe posted above for the alternate PB filling.

Enjoy!