Banana Cheesecake Bars

We travel to Southern California about every other year. Each time, we stop for the night in Las Vegas. We make it a point (an extremely important point) to stop at a certain cheesecake restaurant while we are there because it is (was) the closest one to us. One of my favorite things to eat there: banana cream cheesecake.

Supply and demand is a funny little thing. When it took 6 hours to get to said restaurant, we made a ceremonial trip. Well, one opened 15 minutes from my house a little over a year ago. Do you think we've stopped in yet? Now that I found this recipe, we may not need to!


Banana Cheesecake Bars

adapted from Food and Family (I prefer whipped cream to cool whip and mine took a little longer to bake)

1 pkg. (2-layer size) white cake mix, divided
4 eggs, divided
3 Tbsp. oil
2/3 cup packed brown sugar, divided
2 bananas, sliced
2 pkg. (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese, softened
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1-1/2 cups milk
whipped cream
Heat oven to 300ºF. Reserve 1 cup dry cake mix. Mix remaining cake mix with 1 egg, oil and 1/3 cup brown sugar with mixer. (Mixture will be crumbly.) Press onto bottom and 1 inch up sides of greased 13x9-inch baking pan; top with bananas.
Beat cream cheese and remaining brown sugar with mixer. Add reserved cake mix, remaining eggs and lemon juice; beat 1 min. Blend in milk. (Batter will be VERY thin.) Pour into crust.
Bake 45 to 60 min. or until center is almost set. Start checking at 45 minutes. Just open the oven door and jostle the pan a little.
Cool. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Top with whipped cream and a sliced banana. Store leftovers in refrigerator.