While browsing Pinterest for some baked good inspiration last week, I saw this pin for Slutty Cheesecake Bars. I don’t know if it was the  name or the picture that caught my eye, but I knew, I had to make these. We were celebrating my sister’s 25th birthday down the Cape for the long weekend, and so I was in charge of keeping her 8 friends sugared up. So I figured they would be the perfect taste testers for this dessert.

Because we all know I am incapable of actually following a recipe to the t, I used this BakersRoyale recipe as a base and made it my own. I made these on Friday night for the girls this weekend, and then I used my “lessons learned” and “key takeaways” from Friday’s experimenting, to perfect a version tonight to bring to work on Tuesday. I know I would get a lot of crap from my coworkers if I tempted them with photos of the dessert but didn’t bring in some for them on Tuesday. A few tips before you start to bake these: make sure you give yourself plenty of time to let the cheesecake set in the fridge after you bake these before cutting them. Overnight is ideal, but at least a few hours in the fridge is recommended. Secondly, the first time I made cookie dough from scratch for the crust. Honestly, just use the pre-made cookie dough for the bottom layer. It saves a lot of time, and limits the mess in the kitchen, and I think tasted a little better in the end. Those were the key takeaways from my A/B testing.  You can also half this recipe and bake it in an 8×8 dish.

Ingredients:

• 16 oz. cookie dough (ready-made or homemade)
• 32 Oreos
• 24 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Topping

• 6 oz. Whoppers, chopped
• 10 Oreos, chopped

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a greased 13×9 baking dish, use one tube of premade cookie dough (I used Nestle) and spread evenly into the bottom of the dish so that it is completely covered about 1/8 thick. Bake for about 20 minutes, then remove to cool briefly.

Step 2: To make the cheesecake, cream together cream cheese and sugar. Add in eggs and vanilla, and beat for about 3 minutes on medium or high speed until whipped and smooth.

Step 3: Place a layer of Oreo cookies over the cookie dough crust.

Step 4: Cover the Oreos with the cream cheese mixture and spread evenly.

Step 5: Chop up the remaining 10 Oreos and Whoppers and sprinkle on top of the cheesecake. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes or until the cheesecake is set.

Now here is the really hard part. You must let these cool for a few hours. Maybe go for a nice long run to proactively burn off the calories you’re going to put in your body eating these. Or take a nap. Or just duct tape your hands behind your back, because it is near impossible to not dig a fork into these right out of the oven. Or you can take my strategy, which was nomming on frozen Oreos. Yum.

 

This was our last big hurrah of Summer weekend, but apparently mother nature didn’t get the memo. So we didn’t see the sun at all, but at least we got to enjoy a weekend down the Cape. For anyone that knows me well, it is no secret that I am absolutely terrified of thunder and lightning. Where Skip loves to stand on the back porch in the middle of Zeus hailing lightning bolts at us, I tend to take more of a conservative approach of hiding under a bed.

The one downside of living on a lake is that when a big thunderstorm comes, the echo of lightning hitting the lake makes it seem like the world is coming to an end. So apparently mother nature really wanted to end this summer with a bang. Because most of us in the house last night were cowering under a bed thinking the apocalypse was upon us. Needless to say, there was limited sleep had last night, so Harry and I spent most of our day like this. He’s my thunder buddy for life.

 

Happy Labor Day everyone. Get ready for lots of apple and pumpkin recipes. Don’t fight what’s right. Summer is over. Put those white jeans away, get the sweaters and riding boots out, and break out the fall nail polish colors. You can’t stop it, so might as well embrace it.