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I originally made this recipe with my husband’s favorite ingredient in mind—cream cheese.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
Cream Layer
- 8 oz PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese softened
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
- 1 ½ cups strawberries chopped
- ½ cup sugar
- ⅓ 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.
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.