theveganbeauty

Cookies and Cream Energy Bites are our latest obsession! America’s favorite cookie (Oreos®) in a more nutritious way? Heck yes! We make faux (more nutritious) “Oreo” cookie crumbs and mix them into an energy ball for a healthful snack that everyone will go crazy for!

This Cookies and Cream Energy Bites recipe is a BONUS recipe as part of our Back-To-School Lifesavers — a series of recipes that are intended to have little (or no) veggie chopping, minimal prep time, around 10 ingredients or less (not including pantry staples), and use kid-friendly ingredients. This (obviously) isn’t a dinner recipe, but a fun back-to-school snack or addition to a balanced breakfast. Click here to see all the recipes in the series!

Cookies and Cream Energy Bites

If you search for Oreos or Cookies and Cream Energy Bites you’ll most likely find Energy Bites with crushed up Oreo cookies mixed in. While that makes for a great treat, I wanted a treat that had notes of Oreo flavors WITHOUT the actual cookies — something I could feel good about packing in my kids’ lunches or adding to their breakfasts. 

So, I created my own Oreo cookie crumbs — these crumbs taste surprisingly similar to Oreo cookies, but without all the additives and unrecognizable ingredients. Plus these “cookie crumbs” are even (naturally) gluten-free!

Cookies and Cream Energy Bites Ingredients

There are two parts to these energy bites — the “cookie” crumbs and the energy bites. Below we’ll chat about the energy bites ingredients.

• Old-fashioned oats. Make sure to get rolled (old-fashioned oats), not quick oats or steel-cut oats — these types won’t work the same in this recipe. Even though we blend up the oats, for measuring consistency it’s important to use old-fashioned oats.
• Cashew butter. Cashew butter varies quite a bit from jar to jar. I like to get cashew butter that is salted and tasty straight out of the jar. Make sure you enjoy the flavor of the cashew butter by itself — this will be a major flavor in these energy bites. If using a no-stir/natural cashew butter, give it a good stir before measuring out a cup. See “quick tip” below.
• Salt. Depending on the cashew butter used, you may want to adjust how much salt you add. If you’re using cashew butter with no salt added, you may want to add a touch more salt to the mixture. On the flip side, if you’re using salty cashew butter or are sensitive to salt, cut back a bit.
• Chocolate chips. To add in some additional chocolate flavor to emphasize the “cookie” flavor, we add in some dark chocolate chips. Any type of chocolate will work, but to keep these bites more nutritious we prefer dark. (Dark chocolate has antioxidants and other healthful properties.)
• Coconut. We like to use unsweetened shredded coconut so these bites aren’t too sweet. If you’d like to make them more of a treat (less of a nutritious snack), you can use sweetened coconut instead.
• Vanilla extract. The vanilla is what emphasizes a dessert-like cookies and cream flavor. 
• Maple syrup. Not to be confused with corn syrup or pancake syrup, pure maple syrup is the sap from a maple tree that has been boiled down to a thicker consistency. It’s just one ingredient and known for being a natural, more wholesome (less refined) sweetener. Pancake syrup is made with corn syrup and maple extract. Pure maple syrup is quite spend-y (a lot more than pancake syrup), because it is so labor intensive to make.

Homemade “Oreo” Cookie Crumbs Ingredients

• Oat flour. No specialty flour is needed for this recipe — if you have old-fashioned oats leftover from the energy bite portion, you’ll have oat flour in seconds! See the “quick tip” box below
• Dutch-process cocoa powder. Oreo cookies are actually made with black cocoa which is a cocoa powder that has been heavily Dutched. To keep this recipe more simple and not require “specialty” ingredients, we simply use regular Dutch-process cocoa powder instead of black. This is the exact cocoa powder I use (and highly recommend; it’s amazing!). Hershey’s “Special Dark”® cocoa powder is another Dutch-process cocoa powder that is readily found at most grocery stores.
• Sugar. To balance the acidity of the cocoa powder, we do need some sugar. Light brown sugar works great. If you’d prefer to use unrefined sugar, use coconut sugar instead — the two sugars interchange nicely in this recipe.
• Coconut oil. The coconut oil brings everything together. Be sure to use the oil in its solid-state form not melted!
• Salt. A pinch of salt intensifies flavors and brings everything nicely together in these Cookies and Cream Energy Bites!

Cookies and Cream Energy Bite Tips

• Cookies and Cream Energy Bites are very adaptable. As long as you can get a consistency that holds together as a granola ball, you’ll be golden. Swap out cashew butter for different nut butter if you like. Other nut butters can be drier than cashew butter — you’ll know you need more if the mixture is crumbly and not coming together nicely. Add additional nut butter slowly; use 1-2 tablespoons at a time.
• Allow time for the oats to absorb the liquid. At first, these energy balls may seem too moist. After they sit for a bit, though, they firm up as the oats absorb the maple syrup and cashew butter.
• A couple of kitchen tools make recipe prep a breeze! We use a 12-cup large food processor and a cookie scoop to make this recipe. Here’s the exact food processor and cookie scoop we use.

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