Carrot Cake Cookie Bars with Cream Cheese Swirl

Carrot cake and cheesecake are a delicious match and perfect for a spring treat. I often find it easier to make cookie bars rather than cookies, as these mini egg cookie bars and these key lime cookie bars can attest to. And they always fulfil my cookie craving. When I set out to make a carrot cake theme over on Instagram, I immediately knew I wanted to do cookies and also cheesecake. But, I didn’t think about combining the two of them together right away. But once the idea came to me, I knew I had to do it. The carrot cake cookie dough has so much depth thanks to the brown butter. And the cheesecake swirl creates a beautiful layered cookie. These carrot cake cookie bars are perfect for the spring and your next cookie OR cheesecake craving.

Ingredients

Here’s everything you’ll need to make these carrot cake and cheesecake cookie bars.

• For the cookie dough: to make the carrot cake cookie bars, you’ll need all purpose flour, baking soda, kosher salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, allspice, unsalted butter, brown sugar, white sugar, an egg, vanilla extract, shredded carrots and walnuts.
• For the cheesecake layer: to make the creamy cheesecake layer, you’ll need a block of cream cheese, white sugar, an egg and vanilla extract.

How to Make Carrot Cake Cookie Bars

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice. Set aside.

Heat up a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the 1/2 cup butter (112g) and let it melt, stirring constantly with a silicone whisk or spatula until bubbling and browned. It will start to smell nutty and look browned and foamy. Don’t stop stirring, it can easily burn. This should take about five to eight minutes total. Adjust the heat as needed to medium-low to avoid burning. Remove from the heat and pour into a bowl and then whisk in the remaining 1 tbsp (14g) of butter. Once melted, place in the fridge to cool for ten to 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350℉ and line an 8×8 baking dish with parchment paper.

Once the butter is cool, add it to the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large bowl if using a hand mixer). Add the white sugar and brown sugar and turn the mixer on medium speed. Mix for three to five minutes, until everything is fully incorporated and smooth.

Add the egg and vanilla and mix again on medium until fully combined, about one minute.

Add the prepared dry ingredients (flour mixture) to the mixer and mix until fully combined and holds together. Fold in the carrot and walnuts until just combined.

Take about 2/3 of the cookie dough and transfer to the prepared baking dish. Press down into an even layer and set aside.

Wipe out the stand mixer and prepare the cheesecake filling, see below.

Spread the cheesecake layer over the cookie dough. Take the remaining cookie dough and scatter it over the cheesecake.

Transfer to the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until almost fully set. The cheesecake can look a little jiggly still, it will continue to cook and set as it sits.

Place the baking dish on a cooling rack and cool for 30 minutes and then transfer to the fridge to set for two hours.

How to Make the Cheesecake Layer

In a stand mixer, combine the room temperature cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla. Mix on medium-high until completely smooth and creamy.

Tips

• How to slice: to get clean slices, run your knife under hot water and then pat dry. Do this before every slice!
• Use a scale: I highly recommend using a kitchen scale for baking. It not only makes things much more accurate, it also lessens the amount of things you need to clean too! I provide both options (cups and weight) but very much prefer and recommend using a kitchen scale.
• Let it cool: the cheesecake layer needs to set properly, it can look a little jiggly when taking it out of the oven. Let it cool for at least 30 minutes on a cooling rack and then transfer it to the fridge for at least two hours to set.
• Sticky dough: the cookie dough is sticky, do your best to spread it out in an even layer in your baking dish. Use a spatula to spread it out.
• Dollop on the cookie dough: don’t worry too much about making it look perfect, just dollop on chunks of the cookie dough over the cheesecake layer. Use some larger and smaller chunks of cookie dough to create a nice contrast.
• Add extra butter after browning: when you brown butter, you end up removing some of the moisture through evaporation. This means you can lose about 1 tbsp of water per stick of butter. Browning butter creates a wonderful flavour, but because of that overall reduction in volume, it can result in dryer baked goods (like these cookie bars). So it’s important to add some moisture back in after browning. This is typically done with water. For this recipe, we’re adding one tablespoon of butter after browning to compensate.
• Room temperature cream cheese: be sure to let your cream cheese sit out to get it to room temperature. This will ensure the cream cheese layer is smooth and creamy.

How to Store

• Fridge: these carrot cake cookie bars are best stored in the fridge in a sealed container or resealable plastic bag for up to four days.
• Freeze: freeze bars in a freezer safe plastic bag or container for up to one month.

Ingredients & Products I Recommend

I share these products to show you what I choose to use in my kitchen as staple ingredients I use daily (or weekly). So if you opened up my fridge (or pantry), here’s what you’ll find!

• parchment paper
• 8×8-inch baking pan
• cream cheese: for these carrot cake cookie bars, it’s very important to use the cream cheese that comes in a block, NOT cream cheese spread for bagels.
• stand mixer
• kitchen scale: weighing out ingredients (especially for baking) is a game changer and something I highly recommend for getting the most accurate result.

I hope you love these carrot cake cookie bars! If you make it be sure to leave a comment and a rating below. I love hearing from you! Enjoy 🙂

Print