The two winners of the Cherry Republic Gift Box are Linda comment #601 and Brittany Bell comment #507. I will be contacting you shortly to get your mailing info. Thanks for entering everyone!
Valentines Day is this week! Hope you have some fun plans to look forward to!
Today, I have a killer cookie bar recipe for all of you Red Velvet lovers out there. These cookie bars have an amazingly moist, sugar cookie feel to them with just a hint of chocolate flavor. The cream cheese frosting throws them right over the edge of delightful deliciousness. If you like Red Velvet, I am going to wager you will absolutely love these bars. My friends and family gave them many thumbs up.
Let me show you how easy they are to put together!
Red Velvet Sugar Cookie Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting
PRINT RECIPE
Time: 15 minutes prep + 20 minutes cooking + time to cool and frost
Yield: One 9×13 pan
Recipe lightly adapted from The Recipe Critic
Red Velvet Bars:
1 C butter, softened
1 1/2 C sugar
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
2 T red food coloring (an entire 1 ounce jar)
3 1/2 C flour
1/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 t salt
1 t baking powder
Cream Cheese Frosting:
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 C butter, softened
2 1/2 C powdered sugar
1 t vanilla
dash salt
white sugar crystals (optional)
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place 1 cup softened butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar into your stand mixer or medium-sized mixing bowl. Beat on medium speed until the two are light and fluffy. Should take about 2 minutes.
3. Add two eggs…(wow, how did my fingers get so wrinkly!)
and mix for an additional 1 minute.
4. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and 2 tablespoons (an entire 1 ounce bottle) of red food coloring.
Mix well to combine. Looks pretty, right!
5. In a separate bowl place 3 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon baking powder.
6. Sift 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder into the dry ingredients. Stir it well to combine and add it to the red mixture.
7. Line a 9×13 pan with tin foil and spray it with cooking spray. The tin foil will make it easy to get these beautiful bars out of the pan.
8. Press the dough into the pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the bars to cool completely.
9. To make the frosting, place 2 packages softened cream cheese and 1/2 cup softened butter into your stand mixer or medium-sized mixing bowl. Beat until well combined. Add 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix until smooth and glossy.
10. Scoop the frosting onto your cooled cookie bars and spread it out evenly. Sprinkle it all with some white sugar crystals if you like. Dig in right away, or place the bars in the fridge for about 30 minutes. The bars (and frosting) will be easy to cut if they have had a chance to chill a bit.
Enjoy!
16 comments
Hi! This looks so yummy! My son’s favorite cake is red velvet.
Just wondering why when I pin your recipes the photo is usually an ingredient and not the actual final product picture. I just feel like you are not getting proper Pinterest exposure when you can’t see the end result. 🙂
Your recipe looks delicious!
I am so excited to try this recipe! I was wondering how much red food coloring to use if I use the concentrate kind from Americolor.
Stephanie,
I bet you would need quite a lot less. Perhaps only 1 tablespoon. Best of luck to you!
~Jamie
Hi Jaimie! Do you think I could press out the dough and cut shapes out before baking?! I didn’t know if it was the right consistency for that or not! Thank you!! 🙂
Danielle,
What a great idea. I think it would work. The dough is pretty stiff. Let me know if you try it and how they turn out! Best of luck to you!
~Jamie
Hi! Looks delish!
I’m thinking of making these for a Mom’s Beach retreat. I would be making these ahead of time. So, Would they need to be refrigerated, because of the cream cheese frosting?
Thanks!
Mel 🙂
Melanie,
Yes, I would put them in the fridge. Good luck!
~Jamie
Made this per your instructions for v day and they were scrumptious.neighbors loved them too.
These look amazing! I’m going make some today,
Thank you for a wonderful blog, very inspiring
Looks yummy, want to try these for my cake business but just wandering on average ehow many bars would you get from a pan? THANKS
I made these the other night to take to work for someone’s birthday. I ended up throwing them away. They were dry and flavorless. The frosting was great but the bars were awful. I kept thinking I left out an ingredient but I didn’t. Very disappointed.
🙁
I found these to be a bit dry and I used a recipe with 3 1/3 cups flour, a little less than this. Seems like a lot of flour.
Just made these last night for my son’s birthday. So dry and no flavor. Had to throw them out. I believe recipe must be wrong.
Hello,
I tried this recipe out and my dough was very thick and very difficult to manipulate. Any tips??
I had the same experience as noted in other comments. That frosting is amazing but the dough was a very strange texture. Agree that there was little flavor and the end result leads me to believe there’s something missing with the recipe.