Mocha Cheesecake Bars

This month for the Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned Sara’s blog, Cook With Sara. There, she shares a plethora of recipes across pretty much every area of cooking – grilling, slow cooking, baking – and also all sorts of ingredients. Her recipe index was so long (and well organized!) that I was immediately overwhelmed with so many stellar options.Fortunately, I knew I wanted to make something with coffee for an upcoming dinner, so I was able to sift through her many recipes to settle on these Mocha Cheesecake Bars.

I rarely work with gelatin, so was a bit apprehensive about making a cheesecake recipe with it, but Sara gave this recipe a good review so I figured it was worth a try. Of course, the fact that there is an Oreo crust also helped to seal the deal

This cheesecake is a lighter alternative to the more traditional cheesecake recipes, made with reduced fat sour cream and cream cheese, and without eggs. The coffee and chocolate are the stand-out flavorings, and to be sure that flavor came through I added a bit extra of both. For the crust, I omitted the chocolate syrup she called for, only because I didn’t have any on hand.

The assembly of these bars was simple and quick, but they do need some time to set-up before they’re ready for serving. Sara’s original recipe suggests refrigerating them overnight, and if you think to plan ahead that’s probably a smart option. For me, I was hoping to serve these bars the same evening that I made them, so I had to cut into them after about 6 hours after making them. While these bars are inherently fragile (given the addition of gelatin and the lack of eggs), I was able to easily slice and serve them, no problem.

These cheesecake bars are smooth and balanced, if a dessert can de described that way. They are silky smooth, just sweet enough, with mild, pleasant flavors of chocolate and coffee. I really enjoyed them! They’re definitely a lighter version of their former selves, but in a pleasing way.  Big thumbs up! Thanks for the recipe, Sara!