Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake Bars —Rich chocolate cake with chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and filled with cream cheese. These bars are always a hit at parties and are fast, easy and foolproof!
Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake Bars
Happy April Fool’s Day. These chocolate cake bars with cream cheese filling are not a joke. They are 100% real. Really sinful and easy. Just the way I like my desserts.
What we’re working with here is a base layer of Devil’s Food Cake chocolate cake. Topped with white chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips.
A can of sweetened condensed milk is mixed with cream cheese and poured over the top. While baking, the sweetened condensed milk and cream cheese turns into an ooey, gooey hot mess.
The top layer resembles cream cheese frosting in that it doesn’t fully set up, which helps to keep these so chewy and velvety. As an added bonus, that layer creates built-in frosting, so you don’t have to bother with that step because to serve unfrosted bars would be a cruel April Fool’s joke.
The cake rises a bit while baking, pushing up from the bottom of the pan. The layers stay separated yet combine just enough to make each bite full of chocolate cake and chocolate chips and sweetened cream cheese.
The cake is chewy, some chocolate chips remain crunchy while others melt, and the cream cheese is smooth. I love lots of different textures in each bite.
These taste like chocolate cake, not brownies, and are an extremely moist and rich cake at that.
I despise dry baked goods and two kinds of melted chocolate, a stick of butter, a can of sweetened condensed milk, and a slab of cream cheese tend to keep things moist and full of flavor.
These bars are not over-the-top sweet. Over the top rich and decadent? Yes.
What’s in Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake Bars?
To make these chocolate cake bars with cream cheese filling, you’ll need:
- Devil’s Food cake mix
- Unsalted butter
- Egg
- Vanilla extract
- Brewed coffee
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- White chocolate chips
- Sweetened condensed milk
- Cream cheese
How to Make Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake Bars
Make the chocolate cake layer part by mixing cake mix, an egg, and a stick of butter. Press it firmly into the pan. It will be sticky and a little tricky to work with, but just keep pressing and finessing it.
Make sure to wash your hands afterward so no one thinks you were playing in the dirt. No, silly, you were playing in the chocolate cake. Again.
Top the cake layer with the white and dark chocolate chips.
And then flood it with sweetened condensed milk and cream cheese.
It looks soupy and like there is perhaps too much liquid and how could that all bake off and get soaked up, but it does, and it all works out. Very well.
The top layer of cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk remains just a little soft and gooey, a bit loose and unset.
The inside of the bars definitely remain soft and gooey.
Can I Use Another Kind of Cake Mix?
Yes, you can use any chocolate cake mix you like.
Can I Omit the Brewed Coffee?
Yes, you may substitute it with water. However, the coffee doesn’t make these bars taste at all like coffee. It simply enhances the chocolate flavor.
Can I Make the Cake Layer From Scratch?
Most likely, yes. You could make the chocolate cake batter and then incorporate the white chocolate chips, etc. after you’ve made the cake batter. This is my favorite scratch chocolate cake.
Being that I haven’t tried this recipe with a from-scratch cake base, I can’t give particulars on baking time and so on, but it’s a jumping off place.
How to Store Chocolate Cake Bars
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week or freeze for up to three months.
Tips for Making Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake Bars
Note that this recipe calls for sweetened condensed milk, NOT evaporated milk. They’re two totally different products.
A few readers have added peppermint extract to the cream cheese mixture, which sounds divine. Add a small splash if you’re feeling adventurous!
If you plan on serving these at a party later, then I don’t recommend freezing them beforehand. But if you’ll just be enjoying them yourself, then freezing leftovers is fine.
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White and Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Chocolate Cake Bars
Ingredients
Cake Bars
- 1 box devil’s food cake chocolate cake mix, or your favorite boxed chocolate cake mix
- ½ cup unsalted butter, 1 stick, softened
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, bourbon vanilla is especially nice
- 1 to 2 tablespoons cold brewed coffee or water, optional if necessary
- ¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- ¾ cup white chocolate chips
Cream Cheese Layer
- 1 can, 14-ounces sweetened condensed milk
- ½ cup 4 ounces cream cheese, softened (I use whipped cream cheese)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, clear imitation vanilla extract will keep this layer whiter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and prepare a 9-by-13 inch pan by lining it with aluminum foil and then spraying it with cooking spray.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the cake mix, butter, egg, vanilla and mix either with a mixer, with a spoon, or with your hands, kneading it together. The batter will be extremely thick and will be difficult to combine, but keep stirring or use your fingers and knead it together, adding the coffee (will deepen the flavor and does not make them taste like coffee) or water if necessary.
- Press the dough it into the prepared pan. It will be tacky, sticky, and a bit tricky to work with, but keep pressing, spreading, and finessing it.
- Sprinkle the white and dark chocolate chips evenly over the top.
- In a mixing bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk, cream cheese, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and stir until well combined, and pour mixture evenly over dough, using a spatula to gently spread and even it if necessary.
- Bake for 24 to 27 minutes, or until edges of bars begin to barely brown and pull away slightly from the sides of the pan, or until the middle has barely set, taking care not to overbake. Note that the middle will not seem very well set and will be jiggly upon removing from oven and that is okay, you want to keep these gooey. They will continue to set up more after they have cooled.
- Allow bars to cool well before slicing and serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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So I just made these and they were great. I actually added in 1/2 tsp of peppermint extract to the cream cheese mix, topped the bars with a thin layer of a peppermint cream cheese glaze and cut them into tiny bite sized chunks. Everyone seemed to enjoy them, thank you! :-) x
Wow, going the peppermint route sounds delish! I normally only use peppermint around Xmas but it would be perfect in these. Love what you did and thanks for sharing!
At which point do you add the clear vanilla? It is listed in the ingredients list, but not in the recipe instructions. Thanks!
“In a mixing bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk, cream cheese, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and stir until well combined, and pour mixture evenly over dough, using a spatula to gently spread and even it if necessary.”
Oh yes, thanks!
Chocolate Cake Bars looking delicious. I will try this soon and thanks for sharing it with us.
Can i use an 8×8 pan for your recipe? When i made it in a 9×13, the cheese layer turned out very thin.
Just ordered your book
I would say to increase the amt of cream cheese you’re using – go from maybe halfcup/4 ounces to closer to 8 ounces if you felt it was too thin for your liking – mine was fairly thin as well. And add a few more white choc chips, too. If you bake the bars in an 8×8, the issue may be that the chocolate part doesn’t full cook through because it will be such a thick/dense layer underneath all that cream cheese/flood from the sweet cond milk.
Thanks for ordering my book! LMK what you try!
I did use 7 ounces of cheese and added an egg also. In addition to that, i crushed 12 oreo cookies and mixed it with the cake layer,, since the cookies softened, it added a deep chocolate flavore. I know if i put the oreos in the cheese layer, they will float and create brown spots when baked!
Anyway, i’ll do it in an 8×8 pan and let u know what happens.
And gonna try a home made cake mix,, never liked boxed cake mixes.
P.S. vanilla in the chocolate layer was too much,, maybe half tsp will do the job better, each with his own liking ;) love ur work
Maybe the cream cheese layer seemed thin because *relative to* the chocolate layer, it was – since your chocolate layer was more beefed up than mine due to the crushed cookies. Sounds wonderful though!
Trust me when I say my cream cheese layer was not thick – it was just sort of…there. Thinnish and nice, but not like a heavy, thick layer or anything.
Feel free to adapt with homemade cake, vanilla amt, cream cheese amt, 8×8 pan – lots of variables going on! And keep me posted with how things turn out for you!
I tried making this, but the condensed milk and cream cheese mixture didn’t really make a layer. Also, my cake mix rose a lot. Any suggestions on what I’m doing wrong?
Mine wasn’t a perfect “layer” either; more like a topping and some parts were thicker, and others thinner; with patches of cake that puffed up. From what you say, that’s what mine were like. The recipe is a few years old and I am trying to remember exactly what they looked like but I know the ‘layer’ was bumpy and imperfect. Hope they taste great!
Just took these out of the oven! They smell awesome; can’t wait to share them with my dad today :) My only suggestion is to NOT mix the cake batter with your hands. It just clumped all over my fingers and was pretty ineffective (and uncomfortable). I also suggest, when spreading the “dough” in the bottom of the pan, to use your fist sorta like a rolling-pin! I actually put a little cooking spray on first to avoid what happened earlier :P Awesome recipe.
I definitely prefer using a spoon or utensil rather than my hands as well. Some people like to just get in there with their hands though :)
Glad to hear you loved the bars and hope your dad enjoys them as well!
I baked these yesterday and they were amazing! I loved them so much and can’t wait to have more tonight after dinner. We were worried it was going to be over-sweet with all the different ingredients, but it was just perfect for mine and my boyfriend’s sweet tooth. We were a little confused at first when we were mixing the cake mix because it was dry, but it ended up so moist and delicious. Thank you for this awesome recipe! I will be baking this again :)
So glad you liked them and yes, there’s alot of little things going on but they don’t end up being over the top sweet or anything. The cream cheese tempers that a bit. Glad you enjoyed them & thanks for the detailed report! Not sure if you like white/yellow cake or white chocolate, but these bars are sort of a version on a theme and they are one of my all time faves. There’s PB in them too! https://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2011/08/white-chocolate-vanilla-marshmallow-cake-bars.html
I love yellow cake and peanut butter. I will have to try those cake bars too! Thank you for the link :)
I just tried making these (White and Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Chocolate Cake Bars) and it was a complete fail. I’m not sure if that was my fault, or if there was a fluke in the recipe! I’m quite confident that I followed it properly. The cream cheese layer did not turn out as a layer. Half of it sank to the bottom, and the other half all ran towards the center as the cake rose when baking. The cream cheese ‘layer’ did not taste at all like cream cheese – just condensed milk. When I tried to cut it into squares it completely fell apart. And this was not a cheap recipe to make. Hopefully I can turn this glop into cake pops or something.
I’m so sorry that you didn’t have success with these. I’ve made them numerous times as indicated and have had many, many people write to me saying they’ve made them with success. Based on what you just described, it doesn’t sound like you cooked it long enough OR your oven may be running a bit cooler than you think. If it’s still wet and sloppy and fell apart when you cut it, it either wasn’t baked long enough or at a hot enough temp OR possibly not well-chilled enough before slicing. They are a gooey bar, but they should still hold together. I used the ingredients shown in the pics, along with the step by step pics, and if yours looked like mine going into the oven, but not like mine coming out, it’s a baking time issue I think. Just musing.
Cake pops sound like a good idea at this point. Lmk if you ponder it and come up with what you think happened…
I suspect the issue is that the size of cake mixes has changed this year. It went from 18.25 ounces to 15.25 ounces. This makes the mix smaller by almost 2/3 cup and they don’t work anymore in these old recipes unless you buy 2 mixes and adjust. It’s painful. I have a few recipes I’m trying to fix.
In this recipe, I really don’t think 3 oz of mix is really going to change the results dramatically – only because less volume of dry/mix will make it actually easier to get the egg, butter, etc to combine. Plus with the option 1-2 tbsp of coffee/water, this is a very forgiving recipe and I’ve made it many times with different flavors of mix, in various sizes, from 15 to 19oz of mix and it always works out for me!
Sorry it didn’t give me the option to reply to your reply. The difference is 2/3 cup of dry mix. I measured it using an old mix and a new mix once I realized what was happening to my old tested recipes. It absolutely matters.
Your recipes are amazing. I am going to make this one for Easter this year.
How do you stay so slim baking all of the time??
How do you stay so slim, while baking all of the time? I love your recipes and plan on making this one for Easter.
Thank you.
Moderation! A piece, not a whole pan. :) Glad you like the recipes!