Oreo Granola Bar Recipe

Sometimes when I look at certain food blogs I am stunned by the obvious creativity behind some recipes.

I mean anyone who has posted a recipe before knows that recipe posts are the most labor-intensive posts ever. How much time and work you have to invest until you can hit publish on a recipe post is just insane. This Oreo Granola Bar Recipe is definitely one of the best examples for this but let’s talk about that a little later.

First let’s muse a bit about the creative process behind creating a recipe together. Shall we? 

Back in the days when I started this blog I always thought recipes are the easiest posts to put together quickly when time is short but you want to keep up with your schedule. But times change, the blog world has emerged and so has my personal standard for what I think is an acceptable recipe to go online. Call it quality control or aesthetic reasons or call it vanity (which for me I do) but let’s just face the fact that the bar has risen.

Creating Recipes

But besides all the physical work that goes in creating a recipe post the brain part of it is what intrigues me the most. I mean my creative process behind a recipe is pretty much down to the question: What do I wanna eat now? 

Though when I really think about it, it must be a little bit more. After all if it was really just down to that question this would most probably be a burger blog! But I digress…

To me it is most fascinating how the creative process behing developing a recipe works. Next to cooking what I personally fancy it always worked in one of three scenarios for me. Until very recently at least:

1. Random: I have a certain recipe style in mind and throw together what sounds nice. There are combos I know I enjoy and looks also often play a role. Making it colorful and look nice often has a giant impact on taste later as well. Veggie heavy dishes like these Mexican Sweetpotato Fries are a good example for this!

2. Recreations: Plain obvious there is a dish I enjoy a lot so I try to recreate it at home in order to save some money, make it lighter and healthier or tune it a little according to my taste buds. These Original Swabian Dinnete or this Spicy Cashew Beef with Veggies in Brown Sauce are good examples for that.

3. Key Ingrediens: I have a certain key ingredient I want to use in mind and I try to bulid up a recipe around said key ingredient! This White Chocolate Macadamia Granola is a great example for this. As well as these Oreo Granola Bars!

I usually also try to pick Stefan’s brain but to be honest he is often not really helpful with that. He is the most creative person when it comes to marinades but apart from that all he ever requests from me is to make it yummy. That actually even is a running joke between us.

So when I wanted a more elaborate opinion about my idea to make Oreo Granola I messaged Arman to pick his brain. Not only is he a good friend for ages he also has epic taste buds and I do not only say this because he liked the Oreo Almond Butter I gave him last year. No seriously he was the one who introduced me to coconut flour. He was the one who forced me (yes forced me!) to buy several containers of special dark cocoa powder on my last trip to the US. He also shares my random cravings for anything cottage cheese.

To say I got a little help would be a huge understatement. He threw ideas at me like a tennis ball machine throws balls and by now I am not even sure anymore how much of this recipe is my and how much is his credit. Save to say we shared a few ideas in between. 

This recipe went through a visually unfortunate phase, a rock phase and a sloppy phase and now with a little help from a friend (totally hearing the Beatles sing here) it is most perfect. Thank you insert soppy endearment Arman for your help with this recipe, your epic tastebuds and a million other things I am not mentioning in detail here. 

I am going to stop now and give you the recipe. Soppy time is over!

Print Recipe

Oreo Granola Bars

A vegan snack bar for any random chocolate or Oreo craving. These no bake granola bars are sweet and chewy without being too overpowering. The perfect afternoon pick me up.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr

Total Time1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Servings: 12

Author: Juli @1000lovelythings

Ingredients

• 2,5 cups oats
• 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• 8 Oreo cookies
• 3/4 cup Oreo Almond Butter or almond butter
• 3/4 cup brown rice syrup
• 1 T vanilla essence
• pinch of salt
• white chocolate to glace optional

Instructions

• Line a 20 x 30 cm baking tray with baking parchment and set aside
• In a large mixing bowl crush the Oreo cookies with a spoon into desired size
• In a frying pan roast the oats and almonds on medium heat until slightly browned
• Add the oats and almonds to the crushed Oreos and mix well
• In a small pan or saucepan heat up the rice syrup and Oreo butter until melted. Stir in the vanilla essence and salt and mix well until everything is well combined
• Add the mass to the mixing bowl and stir well until the dry ingredients are completely covered in the sticky syrup-nutbutter mass
• Transfer the granola mass to the baking tray, spread even and press lightly into the baking tray
• Refrigerate for at least 1 hour until cutting into granola bars and glace it with melted chocolate

Notes

You can sub the Oreo Almond Butter for regular or even crunchy almond butter but the bar will taste much less like Oreos. I have tested both versions and whilst they are both delicious I highly recommend to use Oreo Almond Butter
Store the granola bars in the fridge

If you are not sold on making this recipe by now I should probably mention that it is super chewy and also completely vegan thanks to Oreos being a vegan cookie. It also got the seal of approval from my lovely husband who said is was yummy (hihi)

With this being said, happy Friday. My weekend starts now. I have two recipes planned to try and test this weekend. Fingers crossed my creative process doesn’t desert me.

How do you create recipes? Is there a process?