My love of cheesecake is well-documented, but I’ll always have a soft spot for creme brulee. When my husband and I were dating, we frequented a beautiful Japanese restaurant whose signature dessert was green tea creme brulee. We ended up having our wedding reception in that restaurant’s banquet room and their green tea creme brulee was served for dessert. This recipe for Creme Brulee Cheesecake Bars made me think back to that night, and my sentimental self just had to give it a try.
These Creme Brulee Cheesecake Bars turn the classic French dessert into something even easier and tastier!
The Ingredients
The list was f ingredients for this Creme Brulee Cheesecake Bar recipe was nice and short. It was also made up of kitchen basics like eggs, sugar, and cream cheese, so nothing was difficult to find.
It did call for a vanilla bean, and that was on the pricey side at almost $9 for one (BTW, Amazon has better deals on vanilla beans). Thank goodness they pack a lot of flavor! But if you don’t want to go there, you can substitute vanilla extract according to a few articles I found online. Three teaspoons seem to be the equivalent of one vanilla bean.
The Process
These Creme Brulee Cheesecake Bars are another dessert that I made days. Here’s how my time was spent:
On the first day, I made the graham creamer crust and filling. My food processor got a workout because it was needed for both steps. A quick rinse while the crust was baking had it ready to blend the cheesecake filling. Once that was baked and cooled, I covered the pan and let it set overnight in the refrigerator.
Day two was cutting up the dessert bars and bruleeing the sugar topping. They were somewhat soft when I cut them, and they melted a bit under the broiler. Also, the sugar melted unevenly as you can see in the main image. I’m thinking a kitchen torch would have given better and more consistent results.
Finally, here’s how the times broke down:
- 23 minutes to make the crust, bake it, and blend the filling
- 2 minutes to add the filling and smooth it down
- 45 minutes to bake
- 4 minutes to cut and sprinkle with sugar
- 2 minutes to broil
- 1 hour 16 minutes (not including time to cool, approximately 4 hours)
