Between the hot dogs and potato salad, serve a little something sweet at your Memorial Day cookout with Beth Barr's prize winning cheesecake bars! She found this recipe years back ago from Southern Living magazine and has tweeked it to made it her own! This recipe serves 12, but it's easy to make this in larger batches.
Ingredients
Crust:
-1.5 cups of graham cracker crumbs
-7 tbsp. butter
-2 tbsp. sugar
Filling:
-12 oz. cream cheese
-0.5 cup sugar
-2 large eggs
-1.5 tsp. vanilla extract
-1 pint of blueberries
Other:
-1 tube of the red cake decorating gel
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease/Pam a 9 inch square baking pan. Line the pan with tinfoil, grease/Pam the tinfoil as well.
2. In a bowl, stir graham-cracker crumbs, butter and sugar until combined. Press mixture onto the bottom of the 9 inch pan. Bake for 10 minutes, then let it cool completely in the pan.
3. In another bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth on a medium speed; gradually beat in the sugar. Mix in one egg, then add the other after the first is mixed in well. Add in the vanilla. Pour filling into the 9 inch pan; bake for 40-45 minutes. Let cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Then chill until ready to serve.
4. Gently lift the cheesecake out of the pan by holding onto the tinfoil edges. Place on the cutting board and peel away foil pieces; cut into 12 squares. To decorate place four washed blueberries in the top left corner of each square. Take your decorating gel and make 4-5 thin stripes down the cheesecake bar. (For a more natural option one can boil down strawberry or raspberry jam to make fruity decorating gel.) Place on a festive plate and serve to your party guests!
Happy Memorial Day!
