Sep 14 / Katie

Loaded Cream Cheese Cookie Bars with Animal Cookie Crust

Do you remember what it was like to grocery shop as a kid? Running through the aisles and grabbing gooey candies, or GoGurt yogurt pops, or whatever new commercial airing on Nickelodeon told you was the new it thing? I do. I didn’t miss a shopping trip (or the chance at adding about $15 unnecessary extra dollars to my parent’s bill…).

When did we go from that to walking through the aisles weighing the pros and cons of the foods…well, I really feel like pasta, but then I won’t get my greens. Or– I have eaten fish two nights in a row so I can’t eat it again…Food-Rules. Aka, the death of food-creativity.

So to start out my week I decided to do two things:

1) Buy whatever I wanted to bake regardless of how ridiculous (First stop– animal cracker bears the moment I walked in Safeway. Then sprinkles. Then cream cheese.)

2) Practice taking photos of said child-baking project with my new very un-childlike toy: a Nikon 5100. [insert excited bouncing around the room here]

I bought vanilla bear crackers because that’s what was calling to me, but regular animal crackers would work well too. Then I put the bears in a bag to do what I also felt like doing: crushing them…

I didn’t have a potato masher or any ‘normal’ cooking utensil to get the job done, so I did what any kid would do: grab whatever I felt like.

I was ready, the idea formed in my head: I must take animal crackers and turn them into a crust — then top with cream cheese icing – then top with white chocolate chip and sprinkle-laden cookie dough.

Loaded Cream Cheese Cookie Bars with Animal Cookie Crust

Crust

8 oz. Animal Crackers

1 stick butter

1 tbsp. honey

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Icing Layer

1/2 stick butter

1/2 package creamcheese

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Cookie Layer

1 and 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 stick butter

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tbsp. baking powder

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Then take the crushed 8 oz. of animal crackers and add in the stick of melted butter, honey, and cinnamon to make crust. Stir and then place in the bottom of a baking pan –

Then place the crust in the oven until its golden brown (I put it in there for approximately 10 minutes). Next, move onto the icing and take the 1/2 stick butter, 1/2 package of cream cheese and 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and stir mixture over low heat until melted together. Place in freezer or fridge for 5 or so minutes to cool slightly.

While that is cooling you can make your cookie batter. Mix the flour, sugar, and baking powder together in a bowl. Then mix in the two eggs (lightly beaten together), vanilla, and butter (I use melted but not super hot so as to not effect the eggs too much. but I’m no stickler for these rules. I am in kid-mode….)

That dough looks boring, so I added in white chocolate chips and sprinkles.

Now comes the fun part – layering. You can really mix the cookie dough and the icing anyway you want. I thought it would be fun to have the icing layer in-between the crust and the cookie mixture so I spread it on very thinly right over the baked crust. Then I spread out the cookie dough in an even layer on top of the icing (careful or some of the crust will mix in – but who cares – if I was a kid I wouldn’t notice…)