Rhubarb in Cheesecake Bars Naturally Gluten Free

Continuing with the rhubarb theme, and the need to use a large amount of rhubarb that was given to me already cut up, the latest endeavor was Rhubarb Raspberry Cheesecake Bars. To up the interest, I used a swirl pattern in the cheesecake. Only one word for these bars: YUM!

Rhubarb Raspberry Cheesecake Bars, with whipped cream and fresh raspberry.
Chiffonade of mint for color.

Gluten Free Recipe

For this recipe, I wanted to go gluten free. Not because I need to have a gluten free dessert, but only because there are people who do need things gluten free. There are so many wonderful foods, including desserts, that are naturally gluten free. While my kitchen is not a gluten free zone, and wheat, rye and barley are used almost daily, if you are on a gluten free regimen, you will already have a gluten free kitchen, or the means to make this without contamination. 

Rhubarb Raspberry Cheesecake Bars

When I was visiting with my sister in November, she made an offhand comment about anything gluten free tasting just awful. I tried to speak with her on this, to say that there are many things that are gluten free by their very nature, but she would hear none of it. This recipe is gluten free just because the ingredients needed are gluten free. It uses a little cornstarch as a thickening agent in the sauce and also in the cheesecake as I feel it gives a silkier texture. So with that in mind, I hope this recipe will tempt everyone, and not just the Gluten Intolerant. 

Most bars or cheesecakes have crust made with cookie crumbs or graham cracker crumbs or other wheat based crumb mixture. For most of my cheesecakes, I have used an almond or other nut based mixture, and this is what was used in this case. The recipe for the almond crust tastes excellent  and it holds up just as well as the cookie crumbs types. If you have a nut allergy, then this particular crust is not for you. For my purposes, this worked spectacularly. This recipe can be used for a cheesecake baked in a spring-form pan also, and the crust will extend up the sides of the pan to about 1 or 1½ inches. If it is used in a 9 x 13-inch pan as I did here, it is pressed only onto the bottom of the pan.

Almond Crust

Makes enough for a 9-inch round spring-form pan or a 9 x 13-inch baking dish

1⅓ cups whole, raw almonds
3 tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon almond extract
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

Preheat oven to375 degrees. Place the almonds and sugar in the bowl of a food processor and process to very small bits. Add the extract and the butter and continue to process until very fine. Press this mixture into the pan of choice. If using a round pan, press the mixture partway up the sides. In a 9 x 13-inch baking dish, press evenly into the bottom. Bake the crust for about 15 minutes, until set and slightly golden. If the mixture pushes up during baking, press it back into place with a glass or other flat object as soon as it comes from the oven. Set aside to cool.

Crust crumbs pressed into parchment-lined pan;
crust is baked, and then pressed back into shape                 

Using this crust in a 9 x 13-inch pan for this recipe, I chose to line the pan with parchment, so the dessert could be lifted out cleanly. In a spring-form pan, obviously the rim is detachable, so this is not necessary. If you are leaving the dessert in the pan and cutting it there, the parchment liner is unnecessary. 

When planning the cheesecake filling for this dessert, I wanted a pink swirly pattern, so I first created the rhubarb and raspberry sauce. I made the crust and this sauce both the evening before, so they both had adequate time to cool. This cheesecake could easily be made in a round, spring-form pan if desired. Baking time may be different, and it would be best to use a water bath to ensure the filling does not get over baked. It was easy to watch in this low baking dish. In a deeper pan, it is more important to keep an eye on the filling as it bakes.

Rhubarb Raspberry Cheesecake Bars

The cheesecake part of the mixture is pretty straightforward. Cream cheese and sour cream, eggs, sugar, a little cornstarch and flavorings are the basis. Making the rhubarb raspberry sauce takes no time at all. Five minutes to cook, and then it is just a decision of how to puree. I have an old food mill, and this kept most of the raspberry seeds out of the mixture. Pressing through a sieve would take a little more time, but work equally well, if not better. If desired, simply puree in a blender. With a Vita-Mix blender, it would puree the seeds completely. However this is done, the mixture must be cooled down before proceeding with the recipe. If desired, a drop or two of red food color can be added to make the color more vibrant in the final product. I did not add food coloring; what is seen in the photos is the natural fruit color.

Rhubarb Raspberry Cheesecake Bars

Rhubarb Raspberry Cheesecake Bars

Makes one 9 x 13-inch pan

Almond Crust above (or crumb crust of choice)

RHUBARB RASPBERRY SAUCE:
2 cups fresh rhubarb, cut in small chunks
1 cup fresh raspberries, lightly crushed
½ cup granulated sugar
pinch salt
1 tablespoon cornstarch

CHEESECAKE:
3 (8-ounce) blocks cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sour cream
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
4 eggs

Prepare the crust and allow to cool completely.

In a medium saucepan, mix together the Rhubarb Raspberry Sauce ingredients and bring them to a boil. Cook, stirring for 5 minutes, until the fruit has broken down and the sauce is thickened. Pass the mixture through a food mill, sieve, blender or food processor (depending on how fine you prefer the cheesecake filling to come out). Cool the mixture and chill completely.

Sauce ingredients in pan; sugar stirred in creates juices; sauce is cooked and pureed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the room temperature cream cheese (very important it be at room temperature or the cream cheese will stay lumpy) in the bowl of a mixer and beat until smooth and creamy. Add the sour cream and sugar and beat at low speed to combine. Add in the cornstarch, vanilla and salt; mix well. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing gently after each addition, until well incorporated. It is important to not over-whip the cheese mixture as this tends to cause the cheesecake to puff up while baking and then crack. Mix gently, so as not to incorporate too much air.

Divide out about ⅓ of the cheesecake mixture. To this ⅓, add all the Rhubarb Raspberry Sauce and whisk well to combine. Drop about ½ of the pink mixture onto the crust Do not spread. Drop on about ½ of the white cheesecake mixture, without spreading. Repeat this process once more with the pink mixture and then the white mixture. Once all the cheesecake batters are in the pan, use a table knife to gently swirl figure-8 patterns through the mixture. Do not over mix.

dropping dabs of cheesecake mixtures in pan; all in the pan, then swirled in figure-8 pattern             

ALTERNATELY: Combine the fruit sauce with all of the cheesecake and stir well, making a pale pink cheesecake.

Tap the pan 2 or 3 times sharply on the counter to release any air bubbles. Bake the cheesecake bars for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees, then lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees for 20 minutes more. The cheesecake may be a little jiggly in the center, but set at the edges.

Allow the cheesecake to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least 3 or 4 hours, or overnight before serving. To make clean cuts, use a knife that has been run under hot water and wiped dry after each cut.


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Raspberries on Sale Equals Raspberry Bars

I think raspberries have been top of my list of favorite fruits, like forever. Growing up we had a yard with so many fruits already growing there, it was a little paradise. Raspberry bushes had taken over a large area, and there were also some black raspberries. We were sent picking for Mom to make raspberry jam every summer. A friend of mine, Tetiana, had given me a bunch of raspberries after the open house last Sunday, and I said something about raspberry pie. She said, "Make bars. They are so much prettier when cut!" 

And I thought, wow, I guess bars have so rarely been in my vocabulary, that might just be an excellent idea. I had been hoping to combine raspberries and rhubarb, and I still probably will, but yesterday, on a trip to the grocery, there was NO RHUBARB! Gasp! 

My Raspberry Bars

Okay then, raspberry bars it would be. But just as bars have not been part of my vocabulary, neither has that kind of crust been. Most every recipe I read online had some mixture of flour, sugar and butter. Some had eggs. Some had oats. Actually a lot of them had oats. And there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for the amounts. Some had a recipe (that would be part bottom crust and part topping) using 4 cups of flour to be crust and topping for a 9 x 9-inch pan, and some had 1½ cups flour to make crust and topping for a 9 x 13-inch pan. This made me wonder, for sure. That is quite a spread between extremes.

I really like crusts. And I love things like streusel. In my recipe for my Best Apple Crisp, Ever, the topping mixture is quite unusual, in that almost every apple crisp has oatmeal in the topping. I love oatmeal; truly love, love oatmeal. For some strange reason, it just is not my "cup of tea" when it is in Apple Crisp toppings. Since the topping for my Best Apple Crisp Ever is such a spectacular (oat-less) mixture, I thought I would try a sort of riff on that concept. 

Making the Crust and Topping Mixture

I wanted to use the same idea for bringing the mixture together into a streusel-like mixture as I use in the Apple Crisp Recipe. Eggs are whisked together and then tossed in to moisten the flour, butter and sugar until crumb-like. The difference is that the topping on the apple crisp has melted butter poured over top before baking. That wouldn't work for the raspberry bar crust, so I opted to grate in the cold butter and cut it in quickly with a pastry cutter. As an alternative, just pick up handfuls and rub the butter between the palms to combine with the dry ingredients. 
 
In the photos here:

• #1 dry ingredients in the bowl
• #2 the cold butter grated in
• #3 toss the dry ingredients over the butter shreds
• #4 cut in with pastry cutter or hands
• #5 pour whisked eggs over the crumbly mixture
• #6 mix quickly with a fork to moisten

This method worked excellently, and the crust is both flavorful and perfectly textured. On this method I would not change a thing.

Thoughts on the Filling

In early April, I tried to make a raspberry pie for the first time, ever. I had 4 little packages of the most perfect raspberries I had seen for a long while. I read about a dozen recipes for raspberry pie. Why in the world would I never have made a pie of raspberries? Mom never did, in my memory, even with all those berries growing in the yard. Somehow, this was just missing from my childhood, and after that never came up as a concept. So I was all ready one morning. We still had our guests visiting, so I thought I would get a jump on the pie while it was still quiet, before breakfast. I mixed up a recipe as I had it created, adding in some sugar and cornstarch to the berries and set them aside while preparing the crust. I was all set, bottom crust in pan, and I looked at the berries, expecting a soupy mixture. 

 

Bottom crust partially baked, the berry mixture poured over
and the topping set in place, ready to bake

Imagine my shock when they were totally dry, and the sugar and cornstarch still all there, dry as can be. Well, I figured (wrongly, as it turned out), they will surely burst open and mix once in the oven, so I proceeded, pouring in the berries and all the dry sugar and cornstarch, then topping with a pretty lattice crust and popped it in the oven. Nearly an hour later the very first tiny bit of bubbling occurred. The crust was way done. The berries and sugar were still dry for the most part. There was a soupy mess in the bottom, but it never got a chance to thicken. A total disaster. It was great scooped over vanilla ice cream though!

Perfection! Raspberry Bars

I have not made a second attempt at a raspberry pie, though I will sometime this summer! I believe that partly crushing some of the berries and mixing in the sugar and cornstarch  to combine would aid in making the proper outcome. This is what I did for the bars. Half the berries went in a bowl with the sugar and cornstarch and once mixed well, the remaining whole berries were added, and the mixture, while completely watery going in, came out perfectly thickened once baked, as shown here in this gorgeous photo.

Here is my recipe, which came out wonderfully well and is most decidedly one of my new favorite desserts. I am looking forward to rhubarb raspberry bars, and peach bars . . .  Here is my recipe:

Raspberry Bars

Makes one 9 x 13-inch pan

BERRY MIXTURE:

Raspberry Bars

4 cups fresh raspberries (from 3½ to 4 six-ounce containers)
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated finely
pinch salt
3 tablespoons cornstarch
½ teaspoon rosewater, optional

CRUST and TOPPING:
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1⅓ cups cold, unsalted butter
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Place ½ of the berries in a medium mixing bowl. Using a potato masher, a spoon, or hands, partly crush the berries. Add in the sugar, ginger, salt, cornstarch and rosewater, if using. Mix well until all the dry ingredients are moistened, and then add the remaining berries and toss to combine. Set the mixture aside to macerate while making the topping.

Parchment-lined pan                                 |               berries partly crushed with sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (350 on Convection Bake). Line a 9 x 13-inch baking dish with parchment, allowing a 2-inch overhand on the long sides. Use cooking spray to coat the inside of the parchment lined pan. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients for the crust. Grate in the cold butter on a large holed grater, or cut the butter into very small cubes and add to the dry ingredients. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter, or rub mixture between palms to incorporate, until the mixture will briefly hold clumps. In a small bowl, whisk together the 2 eggs and the yolk. Pour this into the bowl and using a fork, quickly toss the mixture until it is fairly moistened. Scrape up dry bits to moisten as well as possibly. Use fingers to bring the mixture to point, when it will hold clumps very easily, but is still loose.

Pour about ⅔ of this mixture into the prepared pan, gently maneuvering the crust to the edges and corners. Do not tamp down, but just use fingertips to press down slightly. Bake this crust for 10 or 15 minutes. It will still be soft and only have a spot or two of golden to the top. Remove from the oven. Stir the berry mixture once more and pour the berries over the partly baked crust, gently pushing the fruit to the edges and corners without disturbing the crust too much.

Add the sliced almonds to the bowl with the remaining crust mixture, tossing to combine. Sprinkle this mixture over the top of the berries. Bake the bars for 25 minutes at 375 degrees, then lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for about 20 minutes more. The top crust should be golden and the filling bubbling. Allow the bars to cool completely. The parchment overhang can be used to lift the entire dessert free of the pan, making for easier slicing.

My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.