PECAN PIE CHEESECAKE BARS

 As I told you in the last two posts, last week was my busiest week in over a year. Part of the reason was because I had gotten a little lazy with house cleaning and we were having our Tasty Bunch Friends over Saturday night for dessert (we still are not going out to eat yet, but are gathering for dessert and catch-up at the host house.) This month was our turn out hosting. Wayne and I did go out to Red Robin for an early dinner and then came home in time to meet the other two couples - Janice & Leon and Carol & Keith coming to our house.

I had spent some time during the week looking for something special to make and changed my mind several times before choosing these Pecan Pie Cheesecake Bars. I wanted to make them Friday because it said to chill the bars at least 4 hours or overnight. I wanted to make sure they came out in one piece so to be sure I knew I wanted to make them the day before. They looked so pretty in the picture with the three layers so I certainly wanted them to look that way. 

I will admit from the start or I should say about halfway through the recipe, I was starting to have my doubts that they were going to look like the picture, but I had too much invested in the recipe to stop...so I continued. My suspicions turned out correct though so I was terribly disappointed. That's when I started looking for another dessert and ended up making the awesome Bob Evans' Peanut Butter Pie.

As it turned out Saturday night, I served both. Wayne had me cut the bars earlier Saturday morning so he could taste them. He thought they tasted really good and I shouldn't worry about how they looked. No one would care. (I knew he was true, but I just wanted the bars to show the different layers.) The ironic thing was they loved the bars and Janice and Carol liked the ways they looked. Janice said when she made them, she was going to make them just like I did. So here is how I made them.

Click HERE for a printable copy of just the recipe.

PECAN PIE CHEESECAKE BARS

For the crust:

2-1/2    cups graham cracker crumbs (about 18 full size graham crackers)

1/4       cup sugar

1/2       cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For the cheesecake layer:

2          packages (8 - oz each) cream cheese, at room temperature

3/4       cup granulated sugar

2          large eggs

1          teaspoon vanilla extract

For the pecan pie layer:

1          cup light brown sugar, packed

1/2       cup light corn syrup

1/2       cup heavy cream

1/4       cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/2       teaspoon salt

1          teaspoon vanilla extract

2          cups chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 13 -inch baking dish with parchment paper. (I did not do this, but I sprayed the dish with non-stick cooking spray. I did not have any trouble getting the bars out of the dish, but use the parchment paper sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, if you are afraid they might not come out easily.) Set aside.

In a food processor, process the crackers, broken up, until fine crumbs. Add sugar and melted butter and process until

combined.

Dump crumbs into baking dish and press in the bottom with a large spoon.

Set aside.

For the cream cheese layer, beat the cream cheese with the sugar, eggs, and vanilla using the whisk attachment of the electric mixer. Beat until smooth and fluffy about 3 to 5 minutes.

Pour over the graham crust.

Set aside.

For the pie filling layer, heat the brown sugar, corn syrup, cream, butter, and salt in a saucepan over medium heat.

Stirring constantly, boil for 1 minutes.

Remove from heat and

add the vanilla extract and pecans.

Stir and let cool slightly (about 5 minutes).

Use a small spoon (I used an ice tea spoon) to spoon the pie filling mixture over the cream cheese layer. The purpose of this is so the pie filling won't sink into the cream cheese layer.

(Even using the small spoon, the pecan pie filling did sink into the cream cheese layer.)

Bake in oven for 35 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cover with plastic wrap (I used foil) and refrigerate for 4 hours, or overnight. 

Cut into squares to serve.