These Cookies and Cream Oreo Bars have the perfect elements of a beautifully crunchy Oreo crust and soft, fudgy blondie!
You might be familiar with Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick, driven mad by his search for the white whale. The story’s all well and good, in an English Literature 201 sort of way, but believe me when I tell you that that guy’s obsessiveness has nothing on me and my own hunt for an unattainable object of desire—the perfect white chocolate blondie.
If you follow me on facebook, you may have seen my anguished post about these bar cookies. I made them four times last week, struggling to get them to match the vision in my head.
I wanted a bar with a crunchy Oreo cookie base, and a moist, fudgy blondie texture that wasn’t cakey but wasn’t at all greasy. The white chocolate flavor had to be pronounced, but not cloying, and they couldn’t suffer from the familiar high sides/sunken center malady that so many brownies and blondies experience. In short, they had to match a perfect bar that I had dreamt up, and wouldn’t it be swell if I could get all of those attributes right on the first attempt?
Well, it didn’t happen on the first try…or the second. The third version was probably the worst one of all, and got unceremoniously tossed after an exploratory bite or two. But the fourth attempt, the recipe I’m sharing with you, is magic. I don’t know how much farther I can take the Moby-Dick analogy without grossing you out, but just in case we’re not there yet, I harpooned that sucker and got my white whale. And it tasted like victory.
The combination of a crunchy Oreo cookie crust and a soft, fudgy blondie is wonderful—you really need both elements of these bars to balance one another out. The blondie batter itself has white chocolate folded into it, in addition to white chocolate chips and chunks of Oreo cookies. White chocolate desserts can easily become too sweet, so the barely sweetened cookies help offset that. You can also add some dark chocolate chunks instead or in addition to the white ones, but I wanted to keep the cookie and cream flavor pure.
I think this picture above gives you a great sense of the final texture—rich, soft, and definitely more like a fudgy brownie than your typical bar cookie. I’m excited to think of the other variations I can make with this base recipe—I think a “berries and cream” version, with freeze-dried strawberries or raspberries, would be amazing.
If you find yourself with extra Oreos after making these bars, put them to good use in Oreo Fudge, Cookies and Cream Cake, Dirt Pudding Cups, or Mini Oreo Icebox Cakes!
More Bar Cookies You’ll Love
Cookies and Cream Oreo Bars
Ingredients
- 28 cream-filled sandwich cookies, like Oreos, divided use
- 5 oz unsalted butter, divided use
- 4 oz chopped white chocolate, or white chocolate chips
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 large egg yolk, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line a 9×9-inch pan with aluminum foil. Coarsely chop 10 cookies, and set aside for now.
- Place the remaining 18 cookies in the bowl of a food processor and process them until they’re fine crumbs. (No need to scrape out the cream filling—just toss them in whole.) Melt 2 oz (4 tbsp) of butter in the microwave, then toss the melted butter with the cookie crumbs until the mixture is the texture of wet sand. Press the cookie crumbs into the bottom of the prepared pan so that it is in an even layer.
- Combine the 4 oz chopped white chocolate and the remaining 3 oz of butter in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave them in 30-second intervals until melted. Stir or whisk together until smooth. If the mixture separates, continue to stir gently until it comes back together. Let sit at room temperature until barely warm.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs, yolk, and vanilla extract. Add the melted white chocolate and whisk it in. Finally, add the flour and salt and stir until the flour is almost incorporated. Add the white chocolate chips and most of the chopped cookies, and stir until everything is well-mixed.
- Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, and sprinkle with the remaining chopped cookies. Bake at 325 F for about 45-50 minutes, until puffed, light brown around the edges, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. Cover the pan loosely with foil around the 30-minute mark to prevent the top from getting too brown.
- Cool completely at room temperature, then remove from the pan using the foil as handles. Cut into small squares to serve, and store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.
Recipe Notes
Measuring Tips
Our recipes are developed using weight measurements, and we highly recommend using a kitchen scale for baking whenever possible. However, if you prefer to use cups, volume measurements are provided as well. PLEASE NOTE: the adage “8 oz = 1 cup” is NOT true when speaking about weight, so don’t be concerned if the measurements don’t fit this formula.
Want to learn more about baking measurements and conversion?
Amazing like everything you do!!
Confession: I skimmed Moby Dick and passed my quizzes with the spark notes. However, if that novel resembled these cookies and cream bars, I would have payed more attention. They look perfect!
Oooh, busted! Do you think kids these days still use spark notes? I feel like it’s all wikipedia and google searching nowadays. They don’t know how hard we had it back in the day!
Love these! Can you ship me about 10 dozen please?! 🙂
Wow, I want these now!
These sound amazing!
I did actually read Moby Dick, in 7th grade I believe? I absolutely hated the book. If I recall correctly (that was a LONG time ago), it was because there were way too many long, rambling nautical descriptions throughout the book.
(Luckily for everyone else, it was never actually a required reading in any of my classes, so no need for Cliff notes.)
(Yes, that does mean that I’m the kind of book nerd who reads books like that for fun. I may have hated Moby Dick, but I really enjoyed David Copperfield, and I spent my middle school recesses reading all of the Wheel of Time books that had been published at that time. 😀 )
Oh my gosh, you are such a nerd, I love it! Speaking as someone who was nerdy enough to found a high school literary magazine (that never sold many copies and promptly died when I graduated…) may I just say, you are my type of person. Let’s eat cookies and talk about magical realism in Italo Calvino’s books or something.
[Also, 7th grade?! Way to go, smarty pants!]
My 13 year old just walked in and saw this and said, “Oh, that’s epic!” So, I guess I’ll be making these! 🙂
Better yet, put that kid to work and have the bars delivered to YOU! 🙂
Made these last night.. I was really worried because I had to cook them for an hour and when I took them out they were still very gooey and almost doughy tasting. I followed all the ingredients to a tee so I was super disappointed but I just popped them in my fridge overnight and they set almost like a cheesecake! They’re absolutely delicious. If I were to make again, I won’t even have one until cooling them overnight. Just thought I’d leave that on here for anyone planning on making them soon 🙂
Shannon, thanks so much for the comment! I’m glad you ended up loving them and appreciate your advice for others!
I am intrigued! Thanks for all your hard work so I don’t have to make the first 3 batches! 🙂 Pinning now!
Well, it’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it! 🙂 Thanks for visiting, Laura, and please let me know what you think if you give them a try!