Raspberry Cheesecake Bars

So, I went Raspberry picking a while ago with my mother in law, and we got filthy spoiled. Perfect Raspberries. However, little did I know that raspberries must be used right away. Undecided on how I wanted to use them, I hurried and put them in the freezer to protect them till I could make up my mind. Its not often you get such wonderful au-natural delights.

Fast forward a couple weeks. I had seen the berries in the freezer, and thought, I really need to use those. How? I picked up some angel food cake cups on impulse one day at the store with some coolwhip to go with.

Fast forward a few more weeks. Angel Food cake cups still sitting on the top of the toaster oven. Can't decide if I had waited too long to use them or not. We're having the missionaries over for dinner tonight-do I feed these to them or not? I decided we could try it. So, this morning, I pulled out the raspberries and began to thaw them.

Fast forward another couple of hours. Raspberries are thawed, but not looking like they did after they came off the bushes. Dissapointment. Thinking, *no one else will know that they were fresh* turns to *I know they were fresh and I don't think I can eat them like this* plus, *I really don't know if that angel food cake is still okay to eat or not*

So, Back to the Drawing board. Drawing board results are a fast forward to this:

Mine looked even better. mhmm. Turned out EXCELLENT!

And Fast forward to this:

I give you the recipe.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

- 1 1/2 cups oatmeal (dry)

- quick or old-fashioned

-1/4 cup brown sugar

-1 cup butter or margarine (2 sticks)

-1 package white chocolate chips (12 oz.)

-1 teaspoon cinnamon

-1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

-1 package cream cheese (8 oz.)

-1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz.)

-1/4 cup lemon juice

-1 lemon zest-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-1 can raspberry pie filling (16 oz.)

-2 tablespoons cornstarch

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°, grease 9x13 baking pan.

Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in large bowl.

Cut in butter, using fork, until crumbly.

Add white chocolate chips. Stir to combine.

Reserve 2 1/2 cups for topping. Press remaining mixture into prepared pan.

Beat cream cheese until creamy.

Add milk, lemon juice, zest and vanilla.

Blend until smooth. Pour over crust.

Combine pie filling and cornstarch in medium bowl.

Spoon over cream cheese.

Sprinkle with reserved flour mixture over top.

Bake 35 minutes or until center is set.

Cool completely. Cover and refrigerate until serving. Cut into bars.

And FYI: If you don't have cornstarch. Use 2x the called for amount in Flour. Worked great.

Thank you google, you saved dessert!

Also, I guestimated how much fruit there was-I just used what was available in raspberries from my adventure with Cindy, mixed them with a bit of sugar. Next time we do this, we're gonna try it with cherries or strawberries cuz Travis isn't a fan of all the seeds in Raspberries.

And didn't even worry about the lemon zest or cooling completely. We ate it hot. I'll have to tell you how the refergeration helps or not. The White Chocolate chips are WONDERFUL-so don't skimp on those (those chocolate chocolate chips might be pretty good too....)

Hope you Enjoy it as much as I did!