Reese's Cheesecake Bars

Oooooooh boy.

Do I have a recipe for you!

I've been absent a lot lately and the food-related posts have seriously been lacking, but now I'm back with a BANG!

Feast your eyes on these babies:

Hello, beautiful. Get in my mouth.

Reese's Cheesecake Bars.

Yes. You read that right. Reeses + cheesecake. Two of my favorite things, and hopefully two of your favorite things too.

If not, you're weird. (sorry)


My only complaint is WHY THE #$%^ DIDN'T I MAKE THESE SOONER?!?

In case you can't tell already, these are amazingly delicious. Probably going to make a batch of these as often as I possibly can (which if I want to still fit in my jeans is not that often).

I hope you enjoy these as much as we did!


Reese's Peanut Butter Cheesecake Bars
source: The Sweets Life

Ingredients:
Crust-
-7 whole graham crackers, broken into small pieces
-6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted & cooled
-3 tbsp brown sugar
-2 tbsp all-purpose flour
-1/8 tsp salt

Filling-
-2 packages cream cheese, softened (I used reduced-fat cream cheese)
-2/3 cup granulated sugar
-2 eggs
-1/4 cup sour cream (I subbed 0% greek yogurt)
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1 bag mini Reese's peanut butter cups, chopped

-1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line an 8-in pan with aluminum foil, leaving a 3-4 inch overhang on each side. Grease foil.
2. Make graham cracker crust by adding crackers to food processor and pulsing until fine. Add butter, brown sugar, flour, and salt. Pulse until mixture is combined. Press into the bottom of the baking dish.
3. Bake crust for 12-15 minutes until browning. Cool for at least 30 minutes.
4. In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Slowly add sugar, beating well. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in sour cream (or greek yogurt) and vanilla extract until fully combined.
5. After chopping Reese's peanut butter cups, set aside approximately 1/2 cup for later. Stir the remaining chopped candies into the cream cheese batter.
6. Pour batter into baking pan, spreading evenly over crust. Bake at 325F for 35-40 minutes (rotate halfway through), until the edges are set and middle still jiggles slightly.
7. Cool cheesecake for 2 hours. Cover and refrigerate 3-24 hours.
8. Remove from fridge and using the foil overhang, remove bars from pan. Melt chocolate in the microwave (stirring every 15 seconds). Drizzle chocolate over bars and top with remaining chopped Reese's cups. Cut into squares and enjoy!

**Ashley's Notes: I had to speed this process along because I made these just a few hours before I wanted to eat them, so there was no time for 24 hours of chilling. Instead, I pulled the cheesecake out of the oven and let it cool at room temp for about 1 hour. Then I put the cheesecake into the freezer for about 2 hours (just enough to thoroughly chill but not freeze them). They still turned out great so if you're in a pinch, you can do it the faster way!

Another note, don't freak out if your cheesecake cracks as it cools. This happens. And you're just going to cover it with chocolate and Reese's anyway so it doesn't matter!