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These Blackberry Lime Cheesecake Crumble Bars are loaded with flavor, from the tart lime cheesecake layer to the fresh blackberries and nutty crumble topping.

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Blackberry Lime Cheesecake Crumble Bars- a deliciously shareable treat

These Blackberry Lime Cheesecake Crumble Bars combine a crisp vanilla cookie crust with creamy, zesty lime cheesecake filling, tart blackberries and a sweet and nutty crumble topping.

The recipe yields about 15-24 squares (depending on the size you’re going for, but can also be cut into fun shapes, like these heart shaped beauties I made for Valentine’s day. What should you do with the scraps? Eat em!

blackberry lime cheesecake crumble bars

Making the Bars

First- Make the crust

To make the Blackberry Lime Cheesecake Crumble Bars, you’ll need to process the vanilla wafer cookies in your food processor with some sugar, then combine with melted butter. Once that’s all well mixed- you’ll press it into a parchment paper lined, rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate for 1 hour. Don’t have a food processor? You can always break the cookies up in a food storage bag with a rolling pin or frying pan until they resemble coarse crumbs. Once your crust is made, you’ll pop the whole baking sheet into the fridge to firm up for 1 hour. This will make the next step much easier.

Second- Make the Cheesecake layer

Once your crust has chilled in the fridge 1 hour, go ahead and pull it out, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Next, you’ll simply combine the cheesecake layer ingredients with a hand mixer for a few minutes until smooth. Then you’ll spread that gently over the cookie crust. See how easy that was? That’s because we chilled the crust first.

cheesecake bars

Next, add the berries

Once you’ve got your berries chopped and mixed up with the other berry layer ingredients, go ahead and spread them out evenly over the cheesecake layer. There will be gaps.

blackberry lime cheesecake bars

And last (but not least), make the crumble topping

For the last step before popping the bars into the oven, you’ll combine your dry ingredients for the crumb topping, mix those with some melted butter, and evenly distribute that over the other layers. Then it’s time to wait for the oven to do its magic.

  • blackberry lime cheesecake bars
  • blackberry lime cheesecake bars

And 40-45 minutes later….

You’ll have a sheet pan full of crisp, beautiful Blackberry Lime Cheesecake Crumble Bars. Now for the hard part- you’ve gotta WAIT for them to cool, and then WAIT for them to chill in the fridge for a few hours.

blackberry lime cheesecake crumble bars

And after all that waiting…

You finally get to enjoy! Cut them into any size square you like, or into cut little shapes and serve chilled.

blackberry lime cheesecake crumble bars
Print Recipe
5 from 1 vote

Blackberry Lime Cheesecake Crumble Bars

Prep Time20 mins
Cook Time45 mins
Chill time, for crust1 hr
Total Time2 hrs 5 mins
Course: Dessert
Keyword: blackberry dessert, cheesecake bars, crumble topping, lime dessert

Equipment

  • rimmed baking sheet
  • Food Processor

Ingredients

Crust

  • 5 cups Nilla wafers, or other vanilla wafer cookies*
  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

Cheesecake layer

  • 2 8 oz

    boxes of cream cheese, softened 

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped clean*
  • the zest of 1 lime

Blackberry layer

  • 6 oz fresh blackberries, finely chopped
  • 4 tsp sugar
  • the juice of half a lime
  • 1/4 cup flour

Crumble topping

  • 1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup oatmeal with flaxseed*
  • 1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

  • Make the crust:
    Combine cookies, and brown sugar in food processor until cookies are reduced to fine crumbs.
    Melt butter in the microwave on high for 45 seconds to 1 minute, until completely melted. Using a fork, mix ground cookies and sugar with melted butter until all cookies are well coated in butter.
    Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
    Refrigerate for 1 hour to firm up crust before baking.
    2. Make the Cheesecake layer:
    Once crust has refrigerated 1 hour, preheat oven to 350 degree and make the cheesecake layer.
    In a medium mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla bean (scraped insides, bean discarded) and lime zest with an electric mixer for 1-2 minutes, until smooth.
    Using an offset spatula or silicone spatula, carefully spread the cheesecake layer over the cookie crust evenly, covering all of the crust (a little edge of crust is OK).
    3. Make the fruit layer:
    In a medium mixing bowl, stir finely chopped blackberries, sugar, lime juice and flour until well combined. Evenly distribute over cheesecake layer.
    4. Make the crumble topping:
    Add brown sugar, flour, oatmeal and chopped walnuts to a medium mixing bowl. Melt butter in microwave for 45 seconds to 1 minute on high, and add to bowl with dry ingredients. Stir well with a fork. Until well combined and medium clumps form. Spread crumble topping evenly over blackberry and cheesecake layers.
    5. Bake:
    Transfer baking sheet to preheated 35o degree oven and bake 40-45 minutes, or until crumble toppng and crust are well browned.
    Cool bars completely before transferring to refrigerator to chill. Refrigerate for 3-4 hours, or overnight before serving. Cut into squares (or shapes!) and serve.

*Notes/Substitutions:

I like Nilla Wafers or their store brand equivalent for this crust, because of their vanilla flavor- however, you could sub in the same amount of graham crackers and this crust would still be great.

If you don’t have vanilla bean handy, you could substitute 1/2 tsp vanilla extract instead.

I like the flaxseed crunch in the crumble topping, but you could use regular oatmeal as well.

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