Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake Bars

I’m knackered. I accidentally called these ‘bras’ not bars. Stupid. But this weekend, I baked a red velvet cake for a friend’s birthday, managed to make ice cream/gelato by hand and made these bad boys below.

They are pretty big. Don’t be deceived. They have a large amount of chocolate, chewy cookie on top and below and the cheesecake is a perfect break between cookie and chocolate, allowing for you to eat the whole thing. Don’t have more than one though, that’s not smart…unless you’re a chocoholic, then do what you want.

I made these Saturday afternoon and they were ready by Saturday evening but if you really want them to be sturdy, you can refrigerate them over night and devour for breakfast next day.

I’m a musical person so each recipe comes with a different album that I listen to each time I bake.

I found this recipe here but I adapted it a bit as I didn’t have chocolate chips! Also, I’m a hardcore Londoner, but when an American recipe calls for cup measurements, I use my Jamie Oliver measuring cups etc so please feel free to buy some measuring cups for these recipes

Music today: Sol-Angel & Hadley St Dreams

Ingredients:

Cookie Dough

• 2 ¼ cups - Plain Flour
  

• ½ teaspoon - baking soda
  

• ½ teaspoon - salt
  

• 12 tablespoons - butter, melted
  

• ½ cup - granulated sugar
  

• 1 cup - light brown muscovado sugar, packed
  

• 2 eggs - lightly beaten
  

• 2 teaspoons - vanilla bean paste
  

• 1 ½ cups - finely chopped dark chocolate (a mix of small and large pieces is fine)
  

Cheesecake Layer:

• 225g - full fat cream cheese
  

• ¼ cup - creme fraiche
  

• 1 egg, beaten
  

• ¼ cup - icing sugar
  

• 1 teaspoon - vanilla bean paste
  

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees/160 fan/gas mark 4
   

2. Line a square 8x8 pan with greased parchment paper and put aside

3. In a medium bowl whisk the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

4. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until it’s all incorporated.

5. Stir in the beaten eggs and vanilla paste.

6. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until you have a soft dough. It will be tough to mix by hand but it’s the only way.

7. Press half the dough into the prepared pan and smooth into one layer using either a spoon, spatula or your own hand.

8. Cover with 1 cup of the diced chocolate. Make sure you add in any dust that chopping the chocolate has created. It makes a difference!

9. Prepare the cheesecake batter by mixing the cream cheese, creme fraiche, egg, icing sugar and vanilla bean paste in a large bowl until creamy. You can use an electric handheld whisk or a regular whisk.

10. Pour the cheesecake batter over the layer of cookie in the pan and spread evenly

11. Mix the rest of the chocolate into the remaining dough and drop bits of dough all over the cheesecake layer until it’s all used up and it will look lumpy. It’s gonna be good, trust me!

12. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the centre is set.

13. Cool in the pan for an hour then refrigerate for 3 hours but overnight is best!

14. Cut into bars and store in the fridge, serving at room temp or straight from the fridge

And that’s it. They are very easy to make, you shouldn’t make too much mess and it’s such a joy to eat. It’s like the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream ‘Wich’ but it’s one of those things that makes the person eating it, close their eyes and ‘mmm’ for about twenty minutes. It’s seriously great.

Enjoy!