Strawberry Cream Cheese Bars are a layered dessert with a sugar cookie bottom, strawberries and white chocolate middle, and cool whip on top!
If you like sugar cookies and strawberries, you’ll love this bar dessert. It has a similar flavor to our strawberry shortcake bars, but with a crispier cookie crust and white chocolate layer. It’s too good!
Sweet & Creamy Dessert Bars
I originally made this recipe with my husband’s favorite ingredient in mind—cream cheese. I also needed to pick a few seasonal ingredients to work with so for this first one I chose STRAWBERRIES (MY FAV!).
The result was these sweet and creamy Strawberry Cream Cheese Bars. They have FOUR delicious layers:
- Sugar cookie crust
- Creamy white chocolate
- Strawberries
- Whipped Cream
They’re the perfect combination of dense and light, sweet and tart. Needless to say, both my hubby and I absolutely loved these bars!
How to Make Them
PREP. Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9×13 pan,
CRUST. Cream together shortening, butter and sugar. Mix until fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla and almond extract until well combined. In a separate bowl, combine baking powder, salt and flour and mix well. Gradually add to creamed mixture until well blended.
BAKE. Spread into the bottom of your greased pan. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until edges or golden brown. Let cool.
CREAM LAYER. Melt white chocolate chips in a bowl in the microwave by heating up in 30 second intervals. Mix with softened cream cheese until well blended. Spread over sugar cookie layer and refrigerate.
STRAWBERRIES. In a small pan, mix together sugar and cornstarch. Add chopped strawberries and water and heat on medium-high heat until it comes to a boil. Once it is boiling, take off the heat and let cool for 10 minutes. Pour over cream cheese layer and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
TOP. Top with Cool Whip and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Substitutes and shortcuts:
These strawberry cream cheese dessert bars are pretty simple and easy to make. Keep in mind that straying, even a little, from the original recipe will give a different result. Still yummy, just different.
- You can replace the cool whip with your own homemade whipped cream.
- You can use a store bought sugar cookie dough/mix for the bottom layer if you want. Just be sure to follow the instructions listed on the packaging.
- Replace shortening with butter if you prefer though It may change the texture.
- Use a can of pie filling instead of making your own fruit layer from scratch.
- Make it your own way using 1 ½ cups of your favorite fresh fruit: raspberries, peaches, blueberries would all be delicious.
Making Ahead and Storing
Make ahead: You can make this strawberry cream cheese bars the day before, but avoid putting fresh fruit on top until you are ready to serve it.
How to store leftovers: Cover leftovers tightly with plastic wrap/foil or put in an airtight container and store in the fridge for 3-4 days.
For more yummy strawberry desserts, try:
- Strawberry Nutella Pizza
- Strawberry Pie
- Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries
- Strawberry Pretzel Salad
- Strawberry Sheet Cake
Strawberry Cream Cheese Dessert Bars
Ingredients
Sugar Cookie Layer
- 1/3 cup shortening
- 1/3 cup butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Cream Layer
- 8 oz cream cheese softened
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
- 1 1/2 cups strawberries chopped
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup water
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- Large Tub Cool Whip
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9×13 pan,
- Cream together shortening, butter and sugar. Mix until fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla and almond extract until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, combine baking powder, salt and flour and mix well. Gradually add to creamed mixture until well blended. Spread into the bottom of your greased pan. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until edges or golden brown. Let cool.
- Melt white chocolate chips in a bowl in the microwave by heating up in 30 second intervals. Mix with softened cream cheese until well blended. Spread over sugar cookie layer and refrigerate.
- In a small pan, mix together sugar and cornstarch. Add chopped strawberries and water and heat on medium-high heat until it comes to a boil. Once it is boiling, take off the heat and let cool for 10 minutes. Pour over cream cheese layer and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
- Top with Cool Whip and refrigerate until ready to serve.
These bars look SOOO good. Two of my absolute favorite things ever!!
These bars look amazingly decilious!! I will be making them this summer!! Eveyone but my husband loves Philadelphia Cream Cheese. I try to sneak it into recipes, but he usually figures it out. My daughters and I don’t mind that he doesn’t like it because that means more for us!! Thanks for the awesome recipe!!
OMG! These look amazing and I will definitely be making these. I know they will be a big hit with the family as well.
These bars look beautifully delicious!
I might be lazy and use strawberry jam instead of making it myself but I’ve gotta try it ~
I am making these bars for Father’s Day dinner tomorrow. I just noticed that you have melt the white chocolate and add Philly creame cheese but nothing about the other egg and butter. I am adding that and hope it is correct
Oh. My. Yumminess. This looks so good! I am strawberry obsessed lately, I may have to add this to my list 🙂
I made these tonight for a neighborhood potluck and they were absolutely delicious and a HUGE hit! Had several requests for the recipe. The only thing I did differently was used real whipped cream on top instead of Cool Whip. Thanks for a great recipe, I will most definitely be making this again!
I made these for the 4th of July and they are AMAZING! I replaced the shortening with butter and made my own sweetened whipped cream with a little vanilla and almond extract. Everyone loved them! Thanks for sharing such a simple, yummy recipe!
So glad you liked it Deborah. Have a great day, and thank you for stopping by! 😀
Love this recipe. Thank you.
What’s not to love about this recipe? White Chocolate is my favorite kind of chocolate and you can never go wrong with strawberries!
Wow, I will be making this all summer long!! The layers are so good together! It’s so soft & creamy!
Strawberry cheesecake is one of my favorite things ever, but in bar form?! I gotta try these.
These made for the best dessert, the kids and adults loved them!! I will be using this recipe over and over again for summer potlucks, it was divine!!
I made these last weekend for our Sunday dinner. Everyone loved it. Thanks you so much!
My 14-year-old me these recently and they were a hit. I specifically liked the sugar cookie layer. It was soft and tasted great with the strawberries and cream.
We love this dessert! Strawberry shortcake in the the form of a bar.