Food Time: Cheesecake Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

What's a girl to do on her bored day off? Bake! 

I went out today to do errands, and decided to go to Target to buy some stuff. Got my basic ingredients to fill up my pantry and I decided I want to bake today. After a week plus hiatus, I miss my kitchen/oven/mixer. I did make those cookies on Sunday, but since today I have plenty of time on my hand, I decided to try out baking on my brownie bar pan. Never used this before, so I browsed around for some recipes about brownies or cookie bars.

The original recipe calls for a 13X9 pan, which I don't have, and to be baked for about 35 minutes. For the bars I made, it reduced it by 10 minutes to 25 minutes. Feel free to follow which ever you want :)

Cheesecake Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Makes about 2 Dozen Bars

adapted from Pass The Sushi who got it from Heat Oven to 350

i got all giddy seeing them rise

Chocolate chip cookie layer:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup butter flavored vegetable shortening
• 1 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract (as always, I'm a fan of Mexican Vanilla)
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Cheesecake layer:

• 1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, at room temp
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven at 350F. I sprayed each slot of the brownie pan with PAM Baking Spray (or you can spread a thin layer of butter/margarine if you like. I'm lazy) and set it to the side.

Using the paddle attachement on my stand mixer, I beat butter, shortening, both sugars, vanilla, salt & vinegar together until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Mix in the egg until incorporated. Add baking soda, followed with flour, in increments (unless you want a explosion of flour all over you! Hah! True story!). Last, stir in the chocolate chips.

Using my hand mixer with the whisk attachment, I beat the cream cheese and sugar in a medium bowl until they both are thoroughly combined. Then beat in the egg and vanilla.

Grabbing my brownie pan, I use my cookie scooper and fill each slot with 1 scoop of dough (about 1 1/2 tablespoon of dough). Next, I layered the dough with the cream cheese, about 1 tablespoon per slot (at the end, I had left overs). To finish it off, I placed about 1/2 tablespoon of the dough on top of the cream cheese. Feel free to kinda press down the dough to flatten the bars, because the bars will rise. 

L: bottom layer; M: add the cream cheese; R: top it with more dough

Insert pan in to oven and bake for about 25 minutes, until the top turns golden and cooked through (the bars will begin to pull away from the sides of the pan slightly). Let the pan cool on top of a wire rack, and remove bars from pan. Store in a air tight container and refrigerate.  

tower of bars!

I experimented by making some in ramekins and it turned out great. Being bad me, I ate it straight out of the oven, so it was very soft and moist. If only I had some vanilla ice cream in the freezer... It would make my night! 

My co-workers will love me (and hate me) for bringing these tomorrow. Aw yeah!

moonbeams & bunny kisses,

Rima