Any reason you can't just use UIButton? I am using Cocos2D, but realized that plain old UIButton was good enough for my needs.
Here's how I added the button to my Cocos2D layer:
UIView *myView = [[Director sharedDirector] openGLView];
UIButton *menuButton = [UIButton buttonWithType: UIButtonTypeRoundedRect];
[menuButton setTitle: @"Menu" forState: UIControlStateNormal];
menuButton.frame = CGRectMake(BUTTON_X(0), BOTTOM_BUTTON_ROW_Y, BUTTON_WIDTH, BUTTON_HEIGHT);
[menuButton addTarget: self action: @selector(menuButtonClicked:) forControlEvents: UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
[myView addSubview: menuButton];
[myView bringSubviewToFront: menuButton];