Blueberry Cream Cheese Bars

This blueberry cream cheese dessert is wonderful for brunch, bring-a-dish parties, snacks, or dessert. Serve as a whole cheesecake, bites, squares, or bars.

This is an easy recipe using common ingredients with simple step-by-step photo instructions. You can adjust the recipe size to your needs.

👨‍🍳How to Make Blueberry Cream Cheese Bars—Step-by-Step Photo Instructions

1. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, egg, and butter.

2. Cut the butter into the mixture until crumbly.

3. Press half of the crumble mixture into a buttered baking dish. Bake at 375° for 8 minutes.

4. Clean and dry fresh blueberries and coat them with sugar and cornstarch.

5. Combine cream cheese, sugar, and an egg. Beat with a hand mixer until smooth.

6. Top the cooled crust with the cream cheese mixture, the blueberries, and the rest of the crumble.

7. Bake until nicely browned—about 40 minutes. Cool in a refrigerator for at least 2 hours before cutting.

For more details, keep reading. See the Recipe Card below for complete instructions and to print.

👨‍🍳Variations and options

You can use fresh or frozen fruit like cherries, blackberries, raspberries, apples, peaches, or mixed fruit or substitute any commercial pie filling.

Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract to the cream cheese mixture for more flavor.

Add ½ teaspoon of cinnamon to the topping.

Replace half the sugar with brown sugar in the crust/topping mixture.

✔️Tips to make it right every time

If you have time, rest the cream cheese and eggs at room temperature for 30-60 minutes before starting. They will mix better.

Use a 8 to 9 inch round springform pan to make a traditional blueberry cheesecake.

If using frozen berries, do not thaw first, but do add an extra teaspoon of cornstarch due to the extra fluid release that will happen.

Adjust the sugar to the sweetness of the fruit.

It is a dessert; use full-fat cream cheese for the best results.

↕️How to make this a smaller "for two friendly" or "family size" recipe

1. Use the recipe card and adjust the number of servings to half or double.
2. Use the amount of ingredients in the ingredient list, not the instructions—those do not change.
3. Where you get half an egg, use an egg white instead.
4. Use the baking dish size discussed in the section below.
5. Cook is a bit less for smaller and more for a double recipe. Cook until the color is right.

📏Baking dish sizes for a half, full, or double recipe

A full recipe uses an 8X8, 9X9, or 9 inches round baking pan.

A double-size recipe fits nicely in a 9X13 cake pan.

For a half recipe, the size of the baking dish is problematic. It must be at least 1 inch deep and have a total surface area of about 25-30 square inches. No standard baking dish fits. A round dish of about 6-inch diameter will work, like some Corning-ware™, and I have some rectangular dishes that work.

🥣Related recipes

For other bar recipes, try Cheesecake Bars, Lemon Bars, and Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars.

For other blueberry recipes, check out Baked Blueberry Pancakes, Blueberry Cobbler, Blueberry Muffins, Blueberry Crumb Pie, and Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake.