Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Bars...

Last night I made these amazing bars...the recipe was actually called Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Cookies, but, honestly, these are more like bars, so I've renamed them in my mind. I found the recipe on Tastespotting and it comes from Bunny's Warm Oven...you can find the original recipe here. They were really easy and would be especially quick if you had the dough already.

Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Cookies

2 8-oz. packages cream cheese, room temperature
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 18-oz. tubes chocolate chip cookie dough
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 x 13-inch pan.

Slice cookie dough into ¼-inch thick rounds. Arrange closely on bottom of pan, pressing to fill in the gaps. In a large bowl, cream the sugar with the cream cheese until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, and mix well. Pour cream cheese mixture over cookie dough. Slice second roll of cookies and place over top of cream cheese.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, until puffed, golden, and center has set. Cool. Cut into 1-inch squares and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

As you can see, the original recipe calls for store bought cookie dough, but I made up a batch of Toll House Cookie dough. I used half on the bottom of the 9 x13...spreading and patting with my hands to create a complete layer at the bottom of the pan yielded the best results...then I used spoons to drop the second half on top of the cream cheese mixture.

While the recipe says "cool", I found these to be amazing if you actually chilled them for a bit in the refrigerator. Also, I think the powdered sugar is for looks, it really didn't seem to add anything, in my opinion.

So, how much more decadent can you get? Its like cheesecake and chocolate chip cookies rolled into one!

Please let me know if you try them, I'd love to hear what you think.