zenbelly

recipes for real life

Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

by 34 Comments

For the past week  (er, month, okay 2 years), I’ve been slightly (read: extremely) anxious about the midterm elections. The days leading up to November 6th, I found myself doing a lot of pacing around the house and stress baking. And stress eating, of course.

blueberry bars

Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

On a more productive level, I’ve been writing postcards to voters, texting voters, calling voters, and knocking on their doors.

I have never done anything like this before. I’ve never done more than vote in elections in the past, and I’m sure I missed a midterm or two. But this year was different. It felt good knowing how many people were fired up, and doing so much more than they usually did.

blueberry cheesecake bars

I knew a couple of people would be joining us at the house to watch the results, so I wanted to make something blue for us to eat. Blueberries might cook up more purple than blue, but they still seem like the best option. After all, Kool-Aid isn’t our drink of choice 😉

(Mad that I’m referencing politics on my food blog? Aw. There is nothing more political than food, so it’s bound to happen once in a while. Please read more about that here) 

blueberry cheesecake bars

When I made these the first time, I used the crust recipe from my Blueberry Lemon Tart but used sugar instead of honey. The rest was somewhat thrown together without measuring or recipe following. That means that I had to make them again to record what I did.

Darn.

Note: The baked goods I’ve been creating for the 8 years for this blog have been paleo-friendly, but I went off the rails with this one. I wasn’t intending to share the recipe here when I made them, but they turned out so great that I wanted to make them again to share. Plus, when the I asked the crew on Instagram if they wanted me to share the recipe, it was almost unanimous.

blueberry cheesecake bars

See? The people have spoken.

Here’s the thing: The recipe is the recipe. It is the one way I’ve made it, and the one way I can guarantee the best results. If you want to sub one ingredient for another, go for it, but I cannot tell you whether or not it will work without testing it myself. And I’m not doing that unless I’m getting hired to do so (which is also an option!) Cool? Cool. 

blueberry cheesecake bars

Print

Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

blueberry cheesecake bars
Print Recipe

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

5 from 8 reviews

  • Author: Simone Miller
  • Prep Time: 20 minutes
  • Cook Time: 40 minutes
  • Total Time: 60 minutes
  • Yield: 16 squares
  • Category: Dessert

Ingredients

for the shortbread crust:

  • 1 large egg
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 tablespoons butter, (melted)
  • 1 1/2 cups almond flour
  • 1/2 cup arrowroot flour
  • 1 tablespoon coconut flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon finely ground sea salt

for the cheesecake layer:

  • 1 8 ounce package cream cheese, (softened)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon arrowroot flour
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen (but not thawed) blueberries ((I used wild blueberries))

for the topping

  • 1/2 cup almond flour
  • 1 tablespoon butter, (melted)
  • 2 tablespoons sugar

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF and line a greased 9×9 inch baking dish with parchment paper. Lightly grease the parchment. (see photos below)

To make the shortbread crust:

  1. In the bowl of your stand mixer or large bowl if using hand beaters: beat the egg, melted butter, and sugar until well combined. Add the almond flour, arrowroot flour, coconut flour, and sea salt and mix on low until mostly combined and then turn it up to medium-high until it forms a dough.
  2. Press the dough into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until it is dry to the touch.
  3. Wipe out the bowl you were using.

To make the filling:

  1. In the same large bowl, beat the cream cheese, egg, arrowroot flour, vanilla and sugar on low until it is mostly combined, and then turn up to high and beat until it is completely smooth. Scrape down the sides as needed.
  2. Pour onto the par-baked crust and smooth out. An offset spatula comes in handy here. 
  3. Sprinkle on the blueberries, and then the topping.
  4. Return the baking dish to the oven, and bake for 350ºF for 30 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown and the center is just set. 
  5. Allow to cool completely before cutting. Place on a rack at room temperature for about an hour before transferring to the fridge to finish cooling. 

To make the topping:

  1. Combine the almond flour, butter, and sugar in a small bowl and stir to combine. It should be the consistency of wet sand. 

how to line a pan with parchment


All of the links on zenbelly.com are for information purposes, however some are affiliate links to books, products or services. Any sponsored posts are clearly labelled as being sponsored content. Some ads on this site are served by ad networks and the advertised products are not necessarily recommended by Zenbelly.

you might also like:

Comments

  1. Simone – I love that you are so staunchly bad ass about including dairy in this particular yummy looking number… and then, you’re so polite with the “darn”. You make me smile.

    These look DIVINE! Will you please come and make them for our election down here?

    Reply

    • Haha I’m glad to hear that. One of these days I’m going to take you up on that and show up at your door, and depending on how things go in 2020, maybe stay forever 😉

      Reply

  2. When this page loaded, all I could see was the picture of these and I gasped. For real. They look just to die for! I have to restrain myself from making them instead of the 1000001 things to do before Thanksgiving.

    I have always, always wanted to volunteer at the polling place. Someday I will (single parenthood=tine is not my own) BUT I did thank every person for being there.

    Reply

    • Raising good humans is THE most important job, so thank you for doing that! I hope you’re able to get everything done before Thanksgiving and that it’s a delicious one!

      Reply

  3. I don’t know. I’m a loyal fan but i wanted to give you a little pushback for ditching the paleo. It’s ok to do that every once in a while — I guess that is what is happening here. But the more you stray from Paleo the less useful your food blog becomes to me.

    I am forced to eat Paleo for health reasons. Believe me I would gorge on wheat, sugar and dairy if I could. But it would cause a migraine so intense that I might never recover.

    So, I’m just sayin. Please don’t make this the start of a trend that takes you away from Paleo. Because there are zillions of good food blogs for non-restrictive diets, and if I were you, I wouldn’t want to be a small fish in that very big pond.

    Personally, if I had no food restrictions I would make every single thing that the dude makes on “kitchen conundrums” and I probably wouldn’t spend much time on smaller sites.

    If you want to start competing in that broader market, fine, I wish you well, but you’ll certainly lose me and probably others who have no choice but to stick to their food restrictions.

    cheers. And happy Thanksgiving.

    Reply

    • Donna-

      Thanks for your support over the years.

      Did you read this post? The part where I wasn’t planning on posting this recipe but just about everyone wanted me to post it? So I did, and they were excited about it? Did you then scroll through the site and find recipe upon recipe that were made with AP flour and dairy and sugar? Or are they still pretty much paleo, the way they’ve been for the 6 years I’ve been posting FREE content on this site? btw the tagline for this site was gluten-free AND paleo recipes from a chef’s perspective for a very long time. It’s never been strict paleo.

      I find it a bit hard to believe that someone who has been a supporter as long as you have would have this reaction; especially with the context that this recipe was written under. I’m sorry that this recipe doesn’t work for you, but there isn’t a single recipe on this site that works for everyone. That’s why people get to choose what they make and don’t make.

      This blog costs me money, and it’s not a hobby, it’s my actual business. If I need to branch out a LITTLE to attract a few people who aren’t on super restricted diets so I can literally stay alive, that is going to happen, and I’m sorry if that upsets you. I promise you will still find hundreds of recipes here that work for you.

      Sorry if that’s not the answer you were hoping for. i appreciate your feedback, but sort of wish it came after I actually made major changes to the mission of this blog, as opposed to after publishing one recipe you didn’t appreciate.

      Reply

  4. My two bits…. I support your putting out recipes like this 100%. And for taking a stand politically. If more people were like you, we wouldn’t be suffering the national nightmare we’re suffering right now.

    I’ve never commented on your blog before, but I’ve been Paleo/Primal since 2009, since long before it was the cool thing to do. (I got hooked on paleo reading Mark Sisson’s blog way back when.) I’ve read your blog for years, and have all your books (Zenbelly is wonderful; Everything Dough was a life changer for me).

    Many, many food blogs have come and gone over the 8 or 9 years I’ve been paying attention, and even when they were “in print” so to say, many published recipes were really lousy (did they actually try them out?).

    You have been one of the brightest lights in the paleo cooking world for a long time. Please keep doing it! Paleo, primal, whatever…. you are a wonderful asset to the Paleo world, and I really hope your business is successful.

    (My little way of helping – I give out Zenbelly as gifts, whether people are paleo or not! And more than once non-Paleo folks, who looked at me askance when presented the book, have come back and commented on how good some recipe or other was.)



    Reply

  5. I cannot cheat on dairy, and I’ve been thinking about using more gelatin in dessert recipes. So I’m thinking coconut milk solidified with some gelatin but made creamier with egg yolks.

    Reply

  6. We LOVE these bars! 🙂 I made them for my girls bday in November and I am now making them again. I tolerate dairy but can’t do gluten, so I appreciate recipe like this for a treat every once in awhile! Your recipes are seriously always the best! Thank you! <3



    Reply

  7. I made these vegan using vegan butter/cream cheese and aquafaba in place of eggs and it was great! Everyone had seconds!



    Reply

  10. This cheesecake looks awesome. Will make as soon as I can. So thankful u posted it.
    Also can’t wait to try pumpkin bread. May make that first because of the time of year.

    Reply

  11. I live in a super small town, n believe or not, our closest Walmart doesn’t have 2 of the 3 flours the recipe calls for. I am SO super jealous of everyone enjoying these!!! Is there anyway I could substitute with plain ol flour??? Btw, love ur blog! U always make me smile while I’m reading. Sometimes even chuckle out loud.

    Reply

    • Thanks, that’s so sweet to hear! Re: flours- They’re all available (and cheaper!) online. I can’t say how ingredient subs will work without trying them.

      Reply

      • Can I make these the day before I serve them? They will be in the refrigerator overnight.

  12. Another stellar recipe!! I made it exactly as is and this is my family’s new favorite dessert. Though next time I may boldly try doubling the cheesecake layer for a thicker slab of wonderful!



    Reply

    • Good idea Johanna! I made these yesterday, and they are delicious. But I think they could need more of the cheesecake part. Next time I will double that part too. Because who doesn’t like cheesecake?



      Reply

  13. As someone who eats a very restrictive (by choice) diet but is married to someone who eats everything under the sun I actually appreciate you posting recipes that are out of my usual sphere of items I eat but include things he would often eat, meaning I can make something special. My husband actually just requested blueberry cheesecake for his birthday and now, with this recipe, I don’t feel like I’m feeding him something full of rubbish, while still being able to eat it myself for a rare treat. I have no issue with you branching out with ingredients outside the Paleo world as we’re all living and working with people who eat differently to us, so it sure it useful to have recipes that can suit the other people in our lives! Can’t wait to try it!

    Reply

  16. These are awesome! I had doubts because it was so much almond flour, but they turned out delicious.

    Usually I hate when people rate a recipe and say they substituted three different things, but I had no coconut flour and just used finely shredded coconut, about 1.5 tablespoons and it was fine. I was too lazy to grind it up in the processor.



    Reply

  17. Has anyone tried making these with strawberries?
    I have excess so was thinking of using them instead of blues for an Easter brunch (tomorrow, yikes)!

    Reply

    • Hi Susan! Sorry if this is too late but strawberries should work! I would toss them with a pinch of salt to sweat some of the excess moisture out of them first. Let me know how they turn out if you make them.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe rating 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

Privacy Policy