Growing up, and even now, this recipe was my absolute favorite sweet treat. This dish comes from my great-grandma, and it is NOT for individuals who are trying to maintain a slim figure! The outcome is a very good, rich bar biscuit. Although optional, the cherries and nuts add wonderful variety to this recipe.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 25 mins |
| Additional Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr |
| Servings: | 36 |
| Yield: | 1 – 9×13 inch pan |
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups margarine, softened
- 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 cup chopped walnuts (Optional)
- ½ cup well-drained chopped maraschino cherries (Optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9×13 inch baking pan.
- Beat the margarine, cream cheese, and sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the margarine mixture before adding the next. Beat in the vanilla with the last egg. Mix in the flour, salt, chocolate chips, and walnuts until just incorporated. Fold in the maraschino cherries; mixing just enough to evenly combine. Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan.
- Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out nearly clean, about 25 minutes. Watch closely – the finished bars will be very pale in color. Remove from oven immediately if the sides begin to pull away from the pan. Cool pan on a wire rack before cutting into bars.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 237 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 24 g |
| Cholesterol | 22 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 3 g |
| Saturated Fat | 5 g |
| Sodium | 210 mg |
| Sugars | 14 g |
| Fat | 15 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I added dried cranberries as well
We love this recipe! Usually do as mini muffins, baking about 10-12 minutes.
I made these and we like them ! They took a little longer for my oven to bake and I tried one warm, which I didn’t really like. I put them in the frig and cut them very small-they are rich!! I made exact recipe using cherries, walnuts, etc. I only used butter in place of margarine. Thanks for sharing!!
Very tasty, I would add more cream cheese. Thanks
Finally made this last night. I did not add the chocolate chips or the optional ingredients. I tasted the batter and was scared because it was real buttery in flavor so I added about 2 tbs. of powdered sugar. Made these in sprayed cupcake pan and they turned out wonderful!! My picky 3 year old loves them as does my 1 1/2 year old. They are so addicting!! I like to warm them up a little in the microwave before eating. They are delish!! Thank you so much for sharing.
I enjoyed these made in a muffin tin like muffins. However I didn’t find the cream cheese taste to be very prominent.. Going to have experiment with this. Great recipe though!
No taste when warm…not any more flavor when cool. Sorry but I won’t be making these again.
I really didn’t like these. they didn’t seem to have much cream cheese taste like I was expecting.
Absolute. favorite. ever. I use half the chocolate chips so it didnt overpower everything else, because, it could have. Also left out nuts, used the cherries. This is soo decedent and delicious! but be warned, I broke one of my mixers mixing this by ! soo think when mixing, i needed to use a turbo mixer!
I used dried cherries instead of maraschino cherries and these turned out really good! I’ll definitely be making these again.
I made these for a luncheon, and frankly even after baking an extra 15 minutes, they were under baked. Will not attempt again.
I originally rev’d this as 4 star BUT I’m now changing it to 5. I have made them several times and with a few changes, they are BEYOND DELICIOUS. 1. use BUTTER and NOT MARGARINE! 2. use 2c of four and NOT three 3. make sure your ingredients (eggs, butter, cr cheese) are room temp 4. make sure you don’t over-cook them. 25-30 min is plenty of time and they should only be a tad brown around the edges. If you cook longer, they will be dry and NOT fabulous. Trust me. My girlfriends devoured them the other night. 🙂
These were fabulous!!! I did make one change though, I used chocolate chunks instead of chips… cut it down to 1 1/2 cups so they wouldn’t overpower the cream cheese and vanilla. The kids liked them so much they even snuck some for breakfast this morning!
These are very good in texture, but lacking in flavour infortunately, which is weird since there are 2 T of vanilla!! I am so glad I cut down on the salt to only 1/2 a tsp as 1 1/2 sounded wayyy too much. I was right, It still came out a bit salty! I did not add the nuts or cherries; only the chocolate. . It was also very light in sweetness. I was really expecting these to be amazing but unfortunately, not so heavenly. Some loved them and some said they were OK. All in all, good recipe, just not great. Thanks for sharing!
i will admit that i tried hard to lighten up these bars, and unfortunately you could tell. however, they were still good with my changes, so i will give a 5star assuming that if i hadn’t gone and messed around with it, it would have been decadent. i used 2 sticks of margarine and the remaining half cup a vegetable oil based spread, splenda instead of sugar, fat free cream cheese, and half whole wheat flour. these were still good, but the texture was definitely affected by my meddling. i will say though, it still satisfied a sweet tooth without giving myself a massive guilt trip. thanks for the recipe!
Skip this recipe! I followed directions exactly. The first thing I noticed was that the bars had way too many mix-ins – 2 cups chips, 1 cup nuts, etc. These bars were too chunky and had no cream cheese flavor. They tasted like a bland shortcake, and they were too doughy (almost like they weren’t cooked, but they were). They did taste better chilled as previous reviewers stated, but even then they weren’t great, and no one in my family liked them – and that’s saying a lot, since we all have a sweet tooth. Overall, I won’t be making them again.
Um…wow. This was amazing. My whole family loved it and even our guests raved. Cream cheese is my friend, so of course I loved it too. 😀 The only thing I changed was to use 1 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of coconut oil in replace of the margarine (I NEVER use that stuff). And oh, no nuts or cherries. Not a fan. The reason why I’m giving it just 4 stars is that I think the cream cheese flavor is a bit lacking. Yes, it’ll still rock your socks off but I think it could use a few extra ounces (2-3 or so) of cream cheese. The first piece I tried was a little corner piece (I snuck it outta there before dinner….shhh! Don’t tell) when the bars were still warm. I was NOT impressed. It was cakey and bland tasting. So I tried a middle piece. Much better. But it was kinda gooey and still bland tasting (like warm cheesecake). So I refrigerated it and let me tell you, they are WAY better cold! Dense, rich and creamy. So do yourself a favor and refrigerate these before serving. 😉 And just one more thing: make this like you would cheese cake. Eggs, cream cheese and butter/coconut oil all at room temp and mix just until incorporated.
Um…wow. This was amazing. My whole family loved it and even our guests raved. Cream cheese is my friend, so of course I loved it too. 😀 The only thing I changed was to use 1 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of coconut oil in replace of the margarine (I NEVER use that stuff). And oh, no nuts or cherries. Not a fan. The reason why I’m giving it just 4 stars is that I think the cream cheese flavor is a bit lacking. Yes, it’ll still rock your socks off but I think it could use a few extra ounces (2-3 or so) of cream cheese. The first piece I tried was a little corner piece (I snuck it outta there before dinner….shhh! Don’t tell) when the bars were still warm. I was NOT impressed. It was cakey and bland tasting. So I tried a middle piece. Much better. But it was kinda gooey and still bland tasting (like warm cheesecake). So I refrigerated it and let me tell you, they are WAY better cold! Dense, rich and creamy. So do yourself a favor and refrigerate these before serving. 😉 And just one more thing: make this like you would cheese cake. Eggs, cream cheese and butter/coconut oil all at room temp and mix just until incorporated.
These were good, but not great. I agree with some other reviews about them being a little dense and cakey, but still tasty.
A new favorite treat for the holidays!
These were absolutely delicious! I did have to bake theme longer than what is suggested in the recipe; but then again i used an 8×11 pan instead of the 9×13, so they were taller squares and made the removal from the pan a little difficult (they’re very tender). I will try the mini muffin pan next time. I used a mixture of semi sweet and milk chocolate chunks. Thanks for the great recipe!