Life in our house has been upside down lately. I was hoping after the holidays things would quiet down a bit. They have to a certain extent in some small ways, but in other ways it has been a rollercoaster. I was hoping I would have more time for a lot of things, but mostly more time to devote to my first love (outside of my family of course!), which is blogging. This “teeny~tiny~almost~unknown~to~most~people” piece of my heart just brings joy to me in so many ways. There are some big changes on the horizon for our family and, hopefully through all of that, I just may have more time to do what I truly enjoy.
Through chaos, hectic schedules, ups and downs and big decisions that need to be made, dessert can be a comforting friend to help ease the busyness of ones’ mind and, why is that you ask? I just do not know. The heart wants what the heart wants. So I will embrace what my heart is telling me, and it’s telling me that I need Strawberry Cheesecake Bars at this particular moment in my life.
Strawberries and cheesecake~quite possibly the most perfect combination of two things I love. Everything that has anything to do with cheesecake is just fine with me. There are so many things you can do to switch it up a bit. There are also many types of cheesecake~from light and fluffy, to super tall and dense (New York~the best EVER). My preference is the latter with a light strawberry sauce drizzled on top. No whip, just sauce. When I can put my all~time favorite dessert into a bar, that just makes my heart happy. These bars are awesome because one~they are so much easier to make than a regular cheesecake and two~ it’s easier to control the serving size. This dessert is a compilation of ideas my brain came up with and a few things here and there from old recipes, and I had some frozen strawberries I needed to use up~so my brain went into “recipe creation overload”. There are a few steps to it, but while the crust is baking, you can make the strawberry sauce and filling which makes prep time much quicker!
This isn’t super dense like a New York style cheesecake which makes it a perfect little “something sweet” to have on the weekend or after dinner (or, like today, after lunch) or serve at get~togethers. I have also lightened it up just a bit by using both light cream cheese and light sour cream so it doesn’t sit too heavy. All of this goodness is nestled between a buttery crumb topping and shortbread crust, the best of both worlds!
Sláinte!
Cheesecake filling adapted from Neighborfoodblog.com
Website: http://thethankfultable.com
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