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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More Recipes Using Cake Mix:
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Gooey Strawberry Cake Mix Brownies — An EASY five-ingredient recipe for soft and chewy strawberry bars studded with white chocolate chips and spiked with sweetened condensed milk for the GOOEY win!!
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S’mores Cake — Chocolate cake gets poked all over and soaked in a marshmallow creme mixture before being topped with crushed graham crackers, toasted marshmallows, and hot fudge sauce.
Rum Cake – A double dose of rum in this EASY cake that’s supremely moist, buttery, and literally juicy from all the rum!! The perfect make-ahead holiday entertaining cake that everyone will LOVE!!
Triple Chocolate Cherry Cake — Loaded with juicy cherries and topped with an easy homemade chocolate frosting. I used a few shortcuts in this recipe to save time, but this cake tastes completely homemade!
saw these on Pinterest… oh gosh they look good :) adding to my little “to-do” list!
Thanks, Jay, for the like/Pin & for saying hi.
Ironically I just made them for a bake sale, too!
https://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2012/04/bake-sale-goodies.html
I didn’t see this until now! I have something super similar on my blog today except made with brownies instead of cake. Oh how we love our white chocolate! :)
I don’t like AF’s day pranks. It can go out of hands at times.
But not that delicious cake bars. That is something I would devour day and night. SO yummy!!!!
Thanks, Kiran :)
This is the week of the brownie!
I just made my first batch of Slutty Brownies (amazing!!!), have seen a few wonderful brownie blog recipes, and am about to use a brownie mix to make fudge.
Great week!
I’ve seen those brownies everywhere and need to try them. LMK how the fudge turns out!
The fudge is great, super easy, and healthy-ish!!!
https://luvwhatyoudo.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/3-ingredient-brownie-fudge/
It is worth a try!
Ive seen similar recipes like that. It looks great!
Holy crap I’m so obsessed with your indulgent, rich, multi-layered bars. At Christmas my sister made several Nutella-swirl pound cakes that probably weighed about ten pounds per loaf… these remind me of those. Of course she was the reason I gained 5 pounds… Great photography and baking :)
Multi-layered bars are the only way to go…you get like 2-3+ desserts in one that way :) The textures, the flavors, I need that all going on. Your sister’s ten-pound poundcakes sound about perfect!
Just wanted to say that I just about died when I saw the first pic to this recipe. Only these bars would have resuscitated me!
(P.S. *LOVE* recipes that include boxed cake. Creative!)
Glad you like it!
If I could sleep with these I would. Every single night. Amazing recipe Averie :)
These are your kind of dessert I think…not super sweet and full of dark chocolatey-ness :)
These look amazing!
Loving these Averie! Especially that the are ooey-gooey and have built in frosting!
White chocolate will forever be the best chocolate there has ever been or ever will be. I want some now! ;)
Another fabulous recipe from Averie! You are going to be the hit at Skyler’s school! All of these desserts are perfect for classroom parties etc. I use to make a big batch of cookies for the class parties, but making 25 cookies is a pain. I’ve now realized it’s much easier to make a big pan of something and then divide it up!
If I brought these to her school, they wouldn’t let me out of the parking lot. They have a STRICT no sugary treats rule, period. Even on bdays. You can bring carrot and veggie sticks with dip, a healthy muffin, or popsicles. No cake, no cookies, nothing even the least bit treat-like. It’s a bit overkill for me personally but I guess the other parents must like it.
Ooooh yum! SO glad these aren’t a joke, they just look divine!
oh girl these are fabulous!
Thanks, hon!