American Flag Cheesecake Bars

recipe from myrecipes.com

Happy Independence Day to my American friends! Hope you all have a wonderful and safe day and remember to thank those who have helped keep us safe while putting their lives on the line. Past and present.

To celebrate the occasion, I made these delicious (and cute) cheesecake bars. Definitely patriotic!

As usual, my decorating skills are lacking.  I used seedless raspberry jelly but still have squiggly, bulging flag lines. Hey, it's not really bothering me much...they still look good, right? Next time I will use an even finer decorating tip and hope for the best.

Ingredients for Crust:

1/2 cup whole almonds

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

8 TBLS. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Ingredients for Filling:

3 - 8 oz. packages cream cheese, at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

3 large eggs, at room temperature

2 TBLS. lemon juice

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. salt

80 fresh ripe blueberries (about 1 cup)

1 cup seedless raspberry jelly

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with foil, leaving a 2 inch overhang on the 2 long sides. Spray with non stick cooking spray.

Crust: Pulse almonds in a food processor until finely chopped. Add flour, brown sugar and salt. Process until well combined. Add butter and pulse just until mixture comes together. Should be somewhat crumbly yet and not able to be formed into a ball. Press mixture evenly over bottom of prepared pan. Bake 25 minutes or until set. Let cool completely on a wire rack.

Filling: With an electric mixer on high speed, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Scrape sides of the bowl. Add eggs one at a time on medium- low, mixing until just combined. Beat in lemon juice, vanilla and salt.

Spread cream cheese mixture evenly over the cooled crust. Tap the pan on the counter 3-4 times to remove any air bubbles. Place pan in a large roasting pan and transfer to oven. Pour hot tap water in the roasting pan until the baking pan bottom is covered up to about an inch. 

Bake for 40 minutes or until filling is set. Cool completely on a wire rack and then cover with foil and chill a minimum of 6 hours. Overnight is even better.

Using the overhanging foil on the 2 sides, remove the cheesecake from the baking pan. Heat a large sharp knife under hot water, then dry the knife. Trim off the edges of the cheesecake. Cut into 16 bars, heating and drying the knife after each cut. (This keeps your bars cut with an even edge)

Decorate each bar with 5 blueberries for the star in the upper left hand corner to resemble stars. Place jelly in a ziploc bag and snip off about 1/6 of a bottom corner. Pipe jelly in thin lines to resemble a stripes on a flag.