Mid-week vibes coming at you because I CANNOT wait for the weekend. Tony and I are headed to Pensacola, FL and we couldn’t be more excited to hit the beach. Somehow Chicago went from 70 degrees last week to a measly 45 with a wickedly cold Lake Michigan wind chill. NOPE, I’m just not ready for it.

Plus, I still haven’t unpacked my mittens from our move so there’s that.

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There are a lot of things I’m looking forward to in the next month: THANKSGIVING, pumpkin pie, my birthday (DEC 22), lots of travel, buying all the things at Trader Joe’s and of course, COOKIE BAKING.

In my mind, cookie season starts as soon as it gets chilly. It’s the absolute perfect excuse to test out as many recipes as possible, pawn off treats to your co-workers and drink as many hot chocolates (because hot chocolates & cookies are the best combo EVER.)

I’m not sure if you guys knew this, but oatmeal cookies happen to be my favorite; a little extra nutrition, a good chew and a hearty texture make them impossible to resist. To put a twist on a traditional oatmeal cookie, I added apples — well, SweeTango® apples to be exact. They’re sweet, crunchy and hands down my favorite apple (even over the Honeycrisp). Actually, SweeTango apples were made by breeding the Honeycrisp and Zester! apples together — pretty cool, huh?

drizzling peanut butter glaze on apple oatmeal cookies

These cookies aren’t just basic babes either. They’re uniquely flavored and nutritious thanks to the apples, coconut oil, whole wheat pastry flour and coconut sugar. Sometimes a lighter cookie is exactly what you need this time of year. Plus they’re topped with a PEANUT BUTTER GLAZE! Sorry for the all caps, but you know how I love my peanut butter.

The SweeTango apples give the cookies the absolute perfect amount of sweetness so you don’t need a ton of excess sugar for sweetness. They also help to keep the cookies moist and chewy, which is why I only needed to use just a tiny bit of coconut oil.

apple oatmeal cookies with peanut butter glaze

Ingredients in the apple oatmeal cookies:

Coconut sugar or brown sugar: I opted to use coconut sugar in this recipe because it has notes of caramel flavor (the perfect apple pairing) and added just the right amount of sweetness to the cookies. If you aren’t familiar with coconut sugar, you can basically replace it 1:1 with granulated sugar in most recipes. It’s all natural and retains some nutritious benefits, unlike regular sugar. I highly recommend trying it out.

Whole wheat pastry flour: I’ve gotten a few questions about that lately from some of you wondering what it is. Here’s the rundown: It’s basically just a lighter version of whole wheat flour — meaning it still has all the benefits of whole wheat flour, but with a lighter texture and flavor. It is truly WONDERFUL in baked goods. Trust the AK.

As always, recipe changes and alterations can be found in the notes section of the recipe. I hope you guys LOVE these. They’re healthy enough to eat for breakfast, right?

apple oatmeal cookies with peanut butter glaze

If you make them, leave a comment below or snap a photo, upload it to Instagram and tag #ambitiouskitchen so I can see your creations! xo.

More apple desserts you might like:

The Best Healthy Apple Crisp

Chai-Spiced Healthy Apple Oatmeal Muffins

Vanilla Coconut Milk Caramel Apple Crisp for Two

This post is in partnership with SweeTango. All opinions, recipes and text are my own. Thanks for continuing to support AK and the brands that help make this site possible.

If you make anything from AK, be sure to tag #ambitiouskitchen on Instagram — I love seeing your creations and featuring followers! You can also find me on FacebookTwitterPinterest and Snapchat (username: ambitiouskitch).