You'll Want to Make These Luscious Cream Cheese Desserts Right Now
Cream cheese is the secret ingredient in the smoothest cheesecakes, creamiest frostings and fillings for cakes and pies, and cookie dough. Here, we're sharing our favorite cream cheese dessert recipes.
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Soft, mild-tasting cream cheese is not just for bagels. Its wonderful texture and flavor make it a pairing natural for sweets, bringing cheesecakes to next-level with smoothness and richness and giving frostings a delightful tang. As you'll throughout this entire collection of cream cheese dessert recipes, there are so many treats that can benefit from a bit of cream cheese in the mix.
We've got two gorgeous cheesecake recipes in the slides ahead—sure, cream cheese may not be the most detectable flavor in each bite, but it does play a strong and important supporting role. There's a pumpkin chocolate rendition with an intense chocolate crust as well as a peanut butter and jelly take that you cut in squares. And just for kicks, you'll also find an inventive take on cheesecake where a no-bake cream-cheese filling floats on a crisp and buttery press-in crust and is topped with fresh fruit. Cream cheese also adds richness and moisture to cookie doughs, particularly rugelach—our Pistachio and Dried Apricot Rugelach is a perfect combination of tart and sweet.
Where cream cheese really shines, though, is in frostings and fillings, like the Apple Layer Cake with Cream-Cheese Frosting that you see right here. We also have a lemon cake with a raspberry cream cheese frosting that might just become your new favorite go-to, a spiced honey cake gets an incredible lift from a satiny-smooth lemon curd and cream-cheese frosting, and a red velvet cake, which is topped with cream cheese frosting to brilliantly offsets the cake's richness.
The majority of desserts made with cream cheese aren't complicated to make, but in most cases you'll want to make sure you allow your cream cheese to soften before using. This will ensure it combines well with the other ingredients, and, in the case of cheesecake and frostings, that they turn out lump-free.
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Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake
This knockout dessert combines a delicately flavored cream cheese and pumpkin filling with a deliciously intense chocolate crust. Serve it as is, or pour a stove-top chocolate-caramel glaze on top for a glossy, glamorous finish.
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Lemon Snack Cake with Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting
A single-layer confection meant to be sliced into any time of day, the snacking cake is one to add to your repertoire. Here, lemon juice and zest brighten the batter, and ground freeze-dried raspberries give classic cream-cheese frosting a natural rosy tint. Pile on whole berries, then help yourself.
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Whole-Wheat Almond-Butter Sandwich Cookies
Here's an updated version on the classic peanut-butter sandwich cookie, starring almond butter and toasted almonds. The filling includes cream cheese, honey, and vanilla.
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Pistachio and Dried Apricot Rugelach
Simmered dried apricots with a hint of vanilla are a perfect combination of tart and sweet. You slather this mixture on rounds of cream-cheese dough, and then slice it into wedges, roll it into crescents, and bake for a delicious cookie.
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Lemon Honey Cake
This rustic cake is infused with the tastes of honey, lemon, and a hint of ground cardamom, almost like a flavorful cup of tea. And the filling is a satiny-smooth cross between lemon curd and cream-cheese frosting.
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Berry Shortcakes with Whipped Cream Cheese
Although berry shortcakes are usually served with whipped cream, this cream cheese version is a pleasant departure. Tangier, thicker, and all around delicious.
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Cherry-and-Cream-Cheese Hand Pies
A cross between a sour cherry pie and a cheese Danish, these flaky pastries are easier to make than you might think, calling for frozen (and thawed) puff pastry. The cream cheese provides a nice counterpoint to the sweet fruit.
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Peanut-Butter-and-Jelly Cheesecake Squares
How'd we get this cheesecake so smooth? It's a one-two-three combo that includes creamy peanut butter, room-temperature eggs, and cream cheese.
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Peach and Blueberry Tart with Cream Cheese Filling
You can't not love this no-bake take on cheesecake, as it's easier than a traditional one and in tart form. The cream-cheese filling floats on a crisp and buttery press-in crust. Top it with fruit and serve.
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Vanilla Bundt Cake with Chocolate-Cream Cheese Filling
Cutting into this beautiful Bundt reveals its rich cheesecake-like chocolate filling, and the whole thing is glazed with a sumptuous chocolate ganache.
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Red-Velvet Sheet Cake
With cocoa powder, butter, sugar, eggs, and sour cream, this red velvet cake has an almost fudgy flavor. Swoops of tangy cream-cheese frosting offset the richness (and give it a nice contrast in hue).
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Black Bottom Cupcakes
Though unfrosted, these chocolate cupcakes with a marble-topped cream cheese filling aren't lacking in flavor or appearance. Consider them the perfect to-go cupcakes, as there's no frosting to muss.