Strawberry Cream Cheese Bars

These are all the tastes of glitter and rainbows and happiness. Delicious. Lets just talk about them for a second. First you have a thick sugar cookie crust, then a layer of creamy white chocolate spiked cream cheese, and all of it's topped with a fantastic strawberry spread. I based this recipe off of THIS Betty Crocker recipe. Which is interesting that it turned out so good, because I just made a cake off of this website and it was horrible. I went back to my food network cake recipe. I've never known vanilla cake to taste like corn bread before, but the recipe I found totally did. Back to the strawberry bars.

I basically followed this recipe but tweaked it a bit. I feel it's a crime against nature to use boxed mixes for cakes and especially cookies so I used a home made sugar cookie recipe, doubled the cream cheese recipe, and just did my own thing with the strawberry spread. So here is my new and improved recipe for what Betty Crocker calls Strawberries and cream dessert and what I call Strawberry cream cheese bars.

Start with the crust, which is a sugar cookie recipe I found in my grandma's recipe box, I'm sure she clipped it from a magazine at some point but that could have been any time between now and 70 years ago so who knows.

2 3/4 Cups Flour
2 Teaspoons Cream of Tartar
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
Dash of Salt
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
2 Sticks Butter at room temperature
2 Eggs
2 Teaspoons Vanilla

First, line your baking pan (I used an 8X11 pan but if you'd like to use a larger pan double your sugar cookie recipe) with tin foil and spray it with a cooking spray or grease it with some butter, whatever you prefer. Set it aside and Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

So you mix all of that together. Use an electric mixer, it takes less time and gets everything blended nicely. Took me about 3 minutes on high with my electric mixer. It might look crumbly, so you'll want to add a bit of water, one teaspoon at a time and mix after each one. Until you get crumbles that are sticking together. A good rule is to take a small handful and smash it in between your palms, if it flattens and sticks together into one solid crust, then it's ready. If you add too much water it will be much too doughy, just add a tiny bit of flour to even it out.

Working quickly, handling the dough as little as possible, dump it into your baking dish and firmly press it into the bottom in one even layer. You need to do this quickly because handling it will warm the dough up and make it super super sticky. If you find your dough has become freakishly sticky already, pop it in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Pop that in the oven for about 20 - 25 minutes or until you can tilt it sideways and get no movement and it's slightly golden on the edges.

Let it cool for at least 30 minutes.

Yes, that is a finger hole in the middle of my crust. You don't have to do this unless you also have a nosey child who feels the need to poke a hole in your crust as well.

Prepare the cream cheese!

2 packages of cream cheese. Whatever brand you'd like. At room temperature.
2 cups white chocolate. I used white chocolate almond bark, about 4 squares, you can always add more if you want more of a chocolate taste. You could also use white chocolate chips which would be easier to melt and measure.

Melt your chocolate either in a sauce pan over medium/low heat or in 30 second intervals in the microwave. Stirring constantly over the stove and after every 30 seconds in the microwave. Melt it until only small chunks remain, take it off the heat, and stir until smooth. This prevents any chance of burning it.

Throw your cream cheese in there, and using an electric mixer, mix it together on high until creamy and well blended.

Scrape this out over the crust and spread an even layer. Put this in the fridge and let it chill out for about 30 minutes to an hour.


The Topping! Almost done I promise!

Strawberries, I used frozen, about 5 handfuls is good.
1 cup sugar, add more if you prefer your topping on the sweeter side. I recommend 2 cups if you'd like it really sweet. I prefer mine a little tart.
Flour
water

(If you'd like to skip this step you could use a nice, thick, strawberry jam instead. This would also work with any other fruit if you want to change it up, blueberries would be fantastic over this as well)

Throw your strawberries in a sauce pan on medium low heat. Add a little water, a little less then 1/4 cup. Put a lid on it and let those berries simmer until soft. Mash them with a potato masher or spoon. If you feel you need more strawberry juice add a little more water at this time.

Add the sugar, and cook about 15 minutes, stirring often. Don't stray too far, if your heat is up too high it likes to boil over so watch out for that.

After the 15 minutes you'll want to throw a little cold water in a measuring cup, about 1/4 to 1/2 a cup. Add about a half a cup to1 cup flour to this. You'll want it pourable but not water thin either. Wisk the flour/water like there is no tomorrow! Until there are not flour chunks remaining, you'll want it very smooth.

Turn the heat under the strawberries up to high and wait for it to boil. Then pour the flour mixture in while constantly stirring until your strawberry mixture is thick. (you may or may not use all the flour mixture)

Remove from the heat and pour over the cream cheese bars. You may need to spread it out with a spatula, just make sure it's evenly covering the cream cheese.

Throw it back in the fridge for at least an hour. Until cold and the topping is set. It should be soft but holding together.

The nice thing about the foil is when you're ready to cut the bars you can pop the entire thing out and you won't have to worry about ruining any by trying to scoop it out of the pan. The sides will be exposed and it will be easy to pull apart.


I hope you try this recipe out! I know it seems like a lot to do but it's not very time consuming, Most of the time is waiting for it to cool. And it's sooooo good!!

As always Enjoy!