Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cheesecake Bars

After the resounding success of the Swirled Turtle Brownies I looked in the baking aisle to see if Nestle is making other kinds of swirled morsels. Indeed they do. There are white chocolate swirled morsels that have a recipe for something involving raspberry. I'm not a big fan of raspberry so I decided to pass on that one. And there are milk chocolate and peanut butter swirled morsels. I'm a real sucker for Reese's Peanut Butter cups. Even better, the recipe on that package involves cheesecake. Someday I will have to devote an entire post to my love of cheesecake and (so far) futile search for the perfect cheesecake recipe. I scooped up a package and tucked it away in my freezer while waiting for cream cheese to go on special.

In case you've never tried it, morsels freeze really well. It's especially good when there's a sale or you get one of those coupons for cents off some absurd number of packages. I just freeze any that I can't use right away. Sure enough, my local grocery store had a twofer sale on cream cheese recently. That's exactly what I needed: 2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese. The morsels came out of the freezer and I got to work. For some reason, the grocery store didn't have graham cracker crumbs that day. I don't know why it is so hit or miss with this item. I just went to the cookie and cracker aisle and picked up a package of graham crackers which I then crushed using my food processor.

The rest went easily. There were no problems until I took the pan out of the oven. The cheesecake portion just wouldn't set. Even after I put it in the fridge, it wouldn't set properly. But that wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem was the lack of taste. Even the next day when most homemade baked goods taste better, there was no taste at all. I was left wondering if anyone actually tried eating these before they published the recipe?

Verdict: What were they thinking???

Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cheesecake Bars

(Source: the back of the morsels package)

2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, melted
3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 2/3 cups (10-oz. pkg.) Nestle Toll House Swirled Milk Chocolate & Peanut Butter morsels, divided
2 pkgs. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 325F
Combine crumbs, butter and 1/4 cup sugar in medium bowl. Remove 1 cup mixture and reserve for topping. Press remaining mixture onto bottom of ungreased 13 x 9-inch baking pan. Sprinkle 3/4 cup Swirled Morsels over crust.
Beat cream cheese, remaining sugar, flour and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth. Pour over crust and morsels in pan. sprinkle with reserved crumb topping and remaining Swirled Morsels.
Bake for 25 to 30 miutes or until set. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Refrigerate intil firm. Cut into bars.

Recycle: vanilla extract bottle

Compost: eggshells