I had a blog post drafted about my favorite WFH breakfast and lunch recipes. I planned to publish it on Sunday, but, when I found out we lost my sweet 'Ice Cream' Grandpie on Saturday, it just felt wrong. It felt wrong to write about food when my heart was breaking. But, baking was one of the things that started to make me feel a little better. Cooking, creating, and sharing recipes is something that always brings me joy and peace. Plus, my grandpa had the hugest sweet tooth, so sharing a recipe for a sweet treat I love, felt like the right thing to do.
I've made these bars in the past using brown sugar cream cheese (check out the original recipe here). But, this time I used the Cinnamon Cream Cheese from Spero Foods. All of their cream cheeses are sunflower based, plant based, and dairy-free.
Get the dEATS on these sweet cheese-less cinnamon cheesecake bars below. They are gluten-free, can easily be made dairy-free, and possibly even vegan, though I've yet to try making them with an egg substitute.
Ingredients:
- 12 crunchy chocolate chip cookies (use gf/df cookies if desired)
- 3 1/2 - 4 tbsp butter (use Miyokos European Cultured Vegan Butter to keep it df)
- 1 container Spero Foods Cinnamon Sunflower Cream Cheese (or regular cinnamon cream cheese)
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- dash of salt
- 1 egg
- dark chocolate
Kitchen supplies required: loaf pan or small baking dish (8 1/2 x 4 1/2), electric mixer, medium mixing bowl, rolling pin and plastic bag or food processor to crush cookies
Instructions
- Add cookies to a large plastic bag, and use a rolling pin to break them into as fine a texture as possible. If you have a food processor, you can also use that.
- Add cookie crumbs to butter coated baking dish. Pour melted butter across crumbs, and use a spoon to mix thoroughly, spreading crumbs evenly across the bottom to create a crust.
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
- Then, add cream cheese to a medium mixing bowl, and beat with an electric mixer for a minute. Add egg, sugar, corn starch, vanilla extract, and salt, beating ingredients into cream cheese after each addition.
- Pour cream cheese mixture over cookie crust, and bake for about 30 minutes or until center is no longer wet.
- Remove from oven, and freeze for about an hour.
- Cut cheesecake bars into squares, then dip into melted dark chocolate. Store bars in an airtight container in the refrigerator.