Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake Bars
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Easy Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake Bars with creamy cheesecake, cinnamon swirl filling, and a buttery graham cracker crust. The perfect cross between cinnamon rolls and cheesecake in an easy-to-serve bar form your guests will love.
For more easy, delicious bar desserts, check out my popular posts for Cream Cheese Lemon Bars, Salted Caramel Pecan Pie Bars, Sugar Cookie Bars, and Caramel Cookie Bars.
Why This Recipe Works
Two Desserts in One — Why make two desserts when you can have just one that combines the best of two awesome desserts: cinnamon rolls and cheesecake? Your life is about to change with this dessert. Eating is believing, so make these ASAP!
Sweet & Salty — One of my favorite flavor combinations is sweet and salty together. The salty graham cracker crust plus the rich and creamy cinnamon-roll-swirled cheesecake equals my own personal heaven.
So easy — These are a piece of cheesecake to make (get it?) and are so worth the less than 60 minutes they’ll take to make.
Unique — Looking for something different to take to all those pot lucks and bake sales? This is IT. No one else is bringing cinnamon roll cheesecake bars, I promise. Your dessert will be the talk of the town. I even grant you permission to keep this recipe a secret. I almost don’t want to share either!
Ingredients
- Graham crackers — You’ll use 12 “sheets” of graham crackers. I use the plain ones but you could use the cinnamon sugar ones if you REALLY love that cinnamon sugar flavor.
- Sugar — White sugar is what you’ll need in both the crust and the cheesecake.
- Butter — Be aware you’ll use melted for the crust and softened for the filling.
- Brown sugar — Be sure to use brown sugar for the cinnamon sugar filling to get that rich, delicious sweet taste. I use light brown sugar but you can also use dark brown.
- Vanilla — I’m a fan of real vanilla extract but you can use artificial too if that’s what you have.
- Flour — All-purpose baking flour is perfect for these cinnamon roll cheesecake bars.
- Cream cheese — Full-fat, regular cream cheese is the best in these bars. Leave it out to soften for about an hour before you’re ready to bake.
- Egg — The egg should be at room temperature before you add it to the cheesecake. Leave it out on the counter along with your cream cheese. See below for tricks to get eggs up to room temperature if you forget to get it out.
Here’s How You Make It
There are three steps to making these cheesecake bars but not to worry, they go really quick and are so easy.
- First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then, line an 8×8 inch pan with foil and grease with cooking spray. (not pictured)
- Next, pulse the graham crackers in your food processor until fine crumbs form. Add the sugar and cinnamon to the graham crackers and pulse again to mix. Pour in the melted butter and pulse the food processor some more (about 30 seconds), until everything is mixed together. (photos 1-4)
- Use a spatula to remove the crust from the food processor and transfer it into the pan, then press the mixture evenly into the bottom. Bake the crust for 5 minutes. (photos 5-6)
- While the crust is baking, make the cinnamon roll filling by getting out a small saucepan and in it combine the butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Cook these ingredients over medium heat, stirring until the butter is melted and all ingredients are combined. Stir in the vanilla and flour last. (photos 7-8)
- In another large bowl, whisk together the egg and the sugar until it’s foamy. Add the cream cheese and vanilla, whisking or mixing until smooth. (photos 9-12)
- Pour the cheesecake mixture on top of the baked crust and drizzle the cinnamon roll filling over the cheesecake layer in any pattern you like, then use a toothpick to swirl the filling into the cheesecake layer. (photos 13-15)
- Put the bars into the oven to bake for another 20 minutes or until the cheesecake is set. Allow the bars to cool for 30 minutes, then put them in the fridge to cool completely. (photo 16)
- When they have cooled all the way down, you can cut and serve them — yum! (not pictured)
Frequently Asked Questions
If you’ve forgotten to bring your eggs up to room temperature, don’t worry. There’s a quick fix for that. Simply put the egg in warm water for about 10 minutes. Notice I said warm. Do not make the water hot or you run the risk of cooking the egg.
You might be wondering why we should bring eggs to room temperature, soften butter, and soften cream cheese (the latter two ingredients soften because they are warming). The reason is that room temperature ingredients, like eggs, can trap air more efficiently, thus creating a lighter, fluffier texture.
The softened butter will mix more easily and disperse throughout the batter, while the softened cream cheese will also be easier to mix and incorporate into the batter.
Expert Tips & Tricks
- These cinnamon roll cheesecake bars will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.
- So easy to double — just bake in a 9 x 13 pan, and start checking for doneness after about 25 minutes.
- You can freeze these cheesecake bars for up to 3 months. I recommend wrapping the bars individually in wax paper before putting them into another airtight container. That way, you can simply remove and thaw only what you want.
More Dessert Recipes
- Cinnamon Roll Overnight Oats
- Cinnamon Roll Ups
- Empty Tomb Cinnamon Rolls
- Overnight Cinnamon Roll French Toast Casserole
- Cinnamon Roll Pound Cake
- Easy Homemade Cinnamon Rolls
Did you make this recipe? FANTASTIC. Please rate the recipe below and be sure to tag me on social when you share a photo on social – I love seeing what you’re up to in the kitchen!
Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake Bars
Ingredients
Crust
- 12 graham cracker sheets
- ¼ cup sugar
- ½ cup butter, melted
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
Cinnamon Roll Filling
- ¼ cup butter
- ½ tablespoon cinnamon
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla
- 1 tablespoon flour
Cheesecake
- 16 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 egg, at room temperature
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350, line an 8×8 inch pan with foil and grease with cooking spray.
- Pulse graham crackers in your food processor until fine crumbs form. Add sugar and cinnamon and pulse. Add melted butter and continue to pulse another 30 seconds. Press mixture into prepared pan. Bake 5 minutes.
- Prepare cinnamon roll filling. In a small sauce pan combine butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Cook over medium heat and stir until butter is melted and ingredients are combined. Stir in vanilla and flour.
Cheesecake
- In a large bowl whisk together egg and sugar until foamy. Add cream cheese and vanilla until smooth. Pour mixture on top of baked crust. Drizzle cinnamon roll filling over cheesecake layer in any pattern you desire and use a toothpick to swirl into cheesecake layer.
- Bake 20 minutes or until cheesecake is set. Allow to cool 30 minutes, then continue cooling in the fridge. When completely cooled, cut and serve. Store in airtight container in fridge.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Tiffany, just want you to know this is one of the tastiest, most unique bar recipes around. I regularly have people going crazy for this. Just wanted you to know I ALWAYS double the recipe and bake it in a 9 X 13. I usually start checking it after about 25 minutes. Just so that you all know, as a 9 X 13 is actually a smidge less than exactly double the size of the 8 X 8, there is much more topping than in your photo. But, with this, the more the merrier. Great recipe!
These were fantastic. I made them for my sister’s birthday party and received SO MANY comments about how wonderful they were. Thank you so much for the recipe!! 🙂
Why do you use foil on the bottom of the pan?
Hi Heidi, Using foil for bars like these is one of my favorite tricks. It makes it so easy to just lift the entire batch of cheesecake bars right out of the pan and set it on a surface for cutting. When you make them without the foil, bars can 1) get chunks stuck to the pan and 2) when you try to shovel them out of the pan they can get destroyed or messy. When they’ve been lifted right out of the pan, you don’t have the pan’s edges in the way of cutting your bars and it’s so easy to clean up afterwards as well – no scrubbing the pan!
Hi Tiffany, hope all is well 🙂 I made this recipe today for an after dinner dessert. I must share with you the fact that we thought this was just an amazing, melt in your mouth oh so good recipe :)~ Yeah,that’s drool. And talk about easy, well, it couldn’t have been any easier to make. Thank you for sharing, I am definitely filing this under “Favorites” ✌
Hi Tiffany! If I wanted to double this recipe, would I just use a 9×13 pan instead? Do you know how long I would bake this size pan for?
I haven’t tried it myself but I do think that a 9×13 pan would work. I would bake for the same amount of time the recipe suggests, then start checking it every 4-5 minutes or so until finished. 🙂
just wondering if I use dark or light brown sugar and if using graham cracker crumbs how many cups
Wow oh wow! These look absolutely amazing! Not only are they gorgeous to look out, I’ll bet they taste divine! Pinned!
Hi Tiffany! Mine are sitting in the oven as I write and they look great! I have a couple questions for you–when making the cinnamon roll filling, when do you remove it from the heat? I took it off before adding the flour and vanilla, but when I put the filling on top of the cheesecake the texture was not consistent…a little was very liquid-y and less “drizzled” and more “dumped”! Also, it was a lot darker and thicker on the top than what’s shown in the pictures–any idea if I did something wrong?? Another question–for the cheesecake description, you list adding an egg twice but I only see one egg in the ingredient list…is it one or two? I used one and put it in with the sugar–I assumed that was more correct!
Thanks for the great recipe! I can’t wait to try them. They smell awesome!
Hi Erica! For the cinnamon-swirl filling, if you used dark brown sugar that may change things a bit. If not, the cook time is dependent on the heat of your stove, you should remove it from the heat as soon as the butter is completely melted and the brown sugar has melted as well, then stir the mixture til it’s smooth. Then you remove it from the heat, stir in the vanilla, etc. Does that make sense?? If it’s cooked too long or not long enough it may have a poor consistency but honestly I haven’t run into that problem with making this type of filling before! And you’re right, just one egg in with the sugar, sorry for the confusing directions, I’ll fix it immediately, thanks for the catch! 🙂
My cinnamon roll filling also got lumpy and separated after removing from heat while I did next step of making cheesecake. I tried reheating but that didn’t help. I’m sure it will still taste delicious,but I think next time I will do the cinnamon roll filling step last so I can immediately pour over cheesecake layer before it thickens up and gets lumpy.
This recipe looks amazing!!
I’m living in Switzerland and it is so complicated to find graham crackers here… And really expansive!
Could you tell me how much 12 sheets of Graham’s crackers are in grams ou cups ? So that I can buy an equivalent stuff :)!
I made these last night and they are delicious. Perfect amount of crust and cheesecake!
I’m so glad to hear you liked them! I made these for a baby shower and they were gone in minutes – I need to make them again because I LOVE them! The crust is my fav 🙂
In the oven now. Can’t wait.