Buttery, chewy sugar cookie bars topped with a dreamy cream cheese frosting are the perfect easy dessert. Top this sweet treat with fun sprinkles and enjoy!
You’ll love these super easy sugar cookie bars topped with a dreamy cream cheese frosting! Sprinkle this sweet treat with fun sprinkles for a fun and festive dessert
Sugar Cookie Bars
If you’re a sugar cookie person like me, then you’ll know the exact feeling I’m about to describe. The craving hits for a buttery, chewy, perfectly vanilla sugar cookie. What follows is a sense of dread…because sugar cookies are not exactly the easiest baked good to just whip up on a weeknight whim. That’s where these perfectly chewy and buttery sugar cookie bars come in. They’re the perfect lazy treat and taste just as good if not better than a cut out sugar cookie! You’re going to love these frosted sugar cookie bars.
How to make sugar cookie bars?
If you’ve never had sugar cookie bars, you’re in for a treat. Picture your favorite sugar cookie recipe in a fraction of the time. All you have to do is make a sugar cookie dough and bake it in a 8 x 8 square pan. Sounds too good to be true, but it’s not. Slather on the best cream cheese frosting you’ll ever have and you’ve got yourself a cookie cake.
Which is exactly how I like to celebrate Mondays.
Better than store bought sugar cookies?
Yes, yes, YES. And this is coming from a girl who grew up on boxed cake mixes.
I must admit, that I do still have a soft spot for those packaged flavors. My favorite recipe to make was taking a Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie mix and making it into what my sister and I called a “cookie cake.” It’s really the best of both worlds and was so delicious. We’d frost it with the store bought frosting from the can and top it with an insane amount of sprinkles.
But I must say, these dense, chewy, buttery, frosted sugar cookie bars are better. Maybe it’s just my refined adult palette, but I simply can’t eat frosting from a plastic container with a spoon anymore. It’s probably for the best, but damn do I have some good memories around it.
These frosted sugar cookie bars are seriously addicting and so so easy to make. If you’re craving that chewy, vanilla sugar cookie, but are feeling a little too lazy to roll the dough out and cut out shapes (no judgement from this girl), I highly recommend you whip these up.
I promise they’ll make this Monday improve significantly.
Buttery, chewy sugar cookie bars topped with a dreamy cream cheese frosting are the perfect easy dessert. Top this sweet treat with fun sprinkles and enjoy!
Buttery, chewy sugar cookie bars topped with a dreamy cream cheese frosting are the perfect easy dessert. Top this sweet treat with fun sprinkles and enjoy!
Preheat the oven to 350°F Fahrenheit. Line a 8 x 8 baking pan with parchment paper and set aside. Using a stand mixer fixed with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until just combined. Add in the egg, milk, vanilla, and almond extract and beat well.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the salt and flour, beating for about 1 minute. Transfer the cookie dough to your prepared pan, spreading all the way to the edges and smoothing out the top. Don’t worry too much about it being perfectly smooth, because it will soon be covered in frosting! Bake the bars for 20 to 30 minutes. You’ll want to take them out when the edges are golden brown, but the center of the bar is still gooey.
for the frosting
Place the room temperature butter and cream cheese in a stand mixer and beat well. Add the powdered sugar, milk, vanilla extract and salt and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Once the cooke bars are cooled, Using an offset spatula, spread the frosting in an even layer over the cooled cookie bars. Sprinkle with your favorite sprinkles, cut into 16 squares and enjoy!
Hi Erika! Try adding an extra tablespoon of milk! It’s also possible your butter was not soft enough! Are you using a stand mixer to make the frosting?
These were VERY good. Huge hit at Thanksgiving (I went a bit non-traditional). The semi-gooey cookie with the cream cheese frosting is divine. And the almond extract adds just the right flavor. Would definitely recommend!
Leave a comment and rate this recipe!
These are wonderful but for some reason my icing wouldn’t come out fluffy. Do you know why that could be?
Hi Erika! Try adding an extra tablespoon of milk! It’s also possible your butter was not soft enough! Are you using a stand mixer to make the frosting?
These were a huge hit with my family! Thank you!
Another fire recipe from Sarah. Only change I have to make is figuring out the timing with my oven. Loved it all!
★★★★★
Hi Emily! So happy you enjoyed our recipe! They are one of my favorites!
A big hit for kiddos and grown ups alike! And so easy to pull together!
★★★★★
These were VERY good. Huge hit at Thanksgiving (I went a bit non-traditional). The semi-gooey cookie with the cream cheese frosting is divine. And the almond extract adds just the right flavor. Would definitely recommend!
★★★★★