Churro Cheesecake Bars

Ingredients

• 2½ cups, plus 1 Tbsp for the filling All-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp Baking powder
• ½ tsp Kosher salt
• ¾ cup / 170 g Cold unsalted butter, cubed
• ¾ cup Milk
• 16 oz / 452 g Cream cheese, softened
• ⅔ cup, plus ⅓ cup for the top Granulated sugar
• 1 Large egg
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• ¼ cup Unsalted butter, melted
• 1 Tbsp Ground cinnamon

Method

1. Heat the oven to 350°F / 175°C. Butter a 9-by-13-inch pan.
2. Stir the 2½ cups flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Cut in the cold butter with your fingers or a pastry cutter until the mix looks like coarse crumbs with a few pea-sized bits left. Stir in the milk until a soft dough forms. It should hold together when you squeeze it, not pour.
3. Press a little more than half the dough into the pan in an even layer. Beat the cream cheese with the ⅔ cup sugar until smooth, then beat in the egg, vanilla, and the extra tablespoon of flour. Spread that over the dough.
4. The rest of the dough will not roll into a neat sheet. Flatten it into pieces and lay them over the filling. Gaps are fine. Pour the melted butter over the top. Stir the remaining ⅓ cup sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle it evenly.
5. Bake 30–35 minutes, until the top is golden and the center barely jiggles. Cool at least 30 minutes, then chill until the filling is firm enough to cut, about 2 hours. A warm bar will smear.

Nutrition

Kitchen estimate only, not lab-verified. A dessert bar built on butter, cream cheese, and sugar. The piece size changes the plate.

Guest diet / allergy swaps

Short kitchen notes for guests. A fuller gluten-free or dairy-free ingredient list, when we have one, is in the panels below.

• Low-sodium friendly

  The ½ tsp salt is in the dough for flavor, not as a salty finish. You can drop it to ¼ tsp. This is still a sweet bar.

• Gluten-free style

  A cup-for-cup gluten-free blend can stand in for the flour in both the dough and the spoon in the filling. The dough will be more tender and may crack more on top. Read the blend.

  • United States: Use a cup-for-cup blend whose bag says gluten-free. Rice flour also works in the roux and gravy notes below.
  • United Kingdom: Look for a free-from plain flour marked gluten free. Keep batters and gravies wetter than the wheat version.

• Dairy-free

  Cream cheese and butter are the bar. There is no clean dairy-free path that still tastes like this.

• No pork

  Nothing in the pan is meat. Use a butter that is not blended with other fats you avoid.

• No egg

  The egg helps the filling set. Leave it out and the center stays softer, closer to a spread than a slice.