{RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE BARS} – PRAJITURA CU BRANZA SI ZMEURA

I hate throwing away leftover ingredients, therefore sometimes, like today, a baking day starts with scouting the fridge and my magic cupboard (aka the place where I keep all the ingredients that aren’t at risk of going stall if not kept at a certain temperature) and coming up with a recipe to use all those ingredients. And today is was the turn of cream cheese – I bought a bucket of silky cream cheese a few days ago and after making a Romanian cheese pie, I was left with about 1 pound of cream cheese that was going to sit in the fridge for days if I wasn’t going to use it. But boy, I’m happy things happened this way because I got to make and taste these cheesecake bars which might be one of the best cream cheese desserts I ever made and tasted!

These raspberry cheesecake bars are incredibly easy to make, you don’t need to be a professional to master a perfectly juicy, fragrant, soft cheesecake bar and there’s nothing you can’t pair them with. I used raspberries this time, but chocolate chips or other fruits are just as good.

Ingredients:
Crust:

• 200g biscuits (I used some simple vanilla biscuits, but feel free to use your favorites)
• 100g butter, melted

Filling:

• 550g cream cheese
• 2 eggs
• 100g sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup fresh raspberries
• Topping:
• 70g butter, softened
• 40g powdered sugar
• 1 egg
• 160g white flour
• 1 pinch salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest

Directions:
Crust:

1. Crush the biscuits in a food processor until they form a fine powder.
2. Add the butter and mix well.
3. Transfer the mix in a baking tray (20x20cm or a similar size) lined with baking paper and press it well on the bottom of the pan.
4. ..............................................

for full recipes please see : pastry-workshop.com