Rolo Cheesecake Bars

A few weeks back at Martha’s annual cookie swap, our friend Tasha made Rolo Cheesecake Bars.  I had to give Tasha a little grief for making a non-cookie offering for a cookie swap, but afterwards, I totally had to fall on my sword (or maybe it was more like falling over on to my sword after having eaten 3 of these things).  These things must be laced with crack or something, because they are TO DIE FOR.  I would venture to say these were the hit of the swap and the most passed around recipe so far.  I wasn’t going all out to make desserts for Feast of Christmas Eve, but I was called to make these (I think the call came from the little devil on my shoulder).  Considering the diet is trashed for the holidays, it took all I could not to eat these all in one sitting.  Slurpity, slurp, slurp, slurp!

For the crust:

• 1 ½ cups of graham cracker crumbs
• ¼ cup sugar
• 6 Tbsp. of butter, melted 

DIRECTIONS

1. Mix the graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter and press them into the bottom of a greased 8” square baking pan. (I believe I used a 7x11 rectangular baking pan)
2. Bake in a preheated 350°F oven until lightly golden brown, about 8-10 minutes and set aside.

For the cheesecake:  

• 1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, room temperature   
• 1/3 cup caramel sauce
  (The original recipe had a link to make a homemade caramel sauce, but it didn’t work for me, and took forever.  Instead of giving it a second try, and used a butterscotch/caramel sauce I had and it worked great.)
• 1/3 cup sugar 
• 1 egg 
• 1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract 
• 1 ½ cup mini Rolos
  (I couldn’t find mini Rolos, so I used a whole package of regular sized ones.  They will do in a pinch, but I would try to get the minis.  They were a tiny bit harder to cut and chew, but just as yummy if you can't find anything else.)

DIRECTIONS

1. Cream the cream cheese, mix in the caramel sauce followed by the sugar, the egg, the vanilla extract and finally the mini Rolos and pour the mixture into the baking pan.
2. Bake in a preheated 350°F oven until the cheesecake is set, about 30-35 minutes, set aside and let cool.

For the chocolate ganache: 

• 12 oz. dark chocolate
• 3 Tbsp. butter

• ¼ cup caramel sauce

DIRECTIONS 

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler, mixing until smooth and pour the chocolate over the cheesecake.
2. Place the caramel sauce in the corner of a small bag, cut a small hole in the corner and slowly squeeze out the caramel creating lines across the chocolate.
3. Use a toothpick to make lines in the caramel going in the other direction to create the wave like pattern.

Adapted from Closet Cooking blog