Red Velvet Cake Bars
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
Next time you have cake scraps or cupcakes lying around, try this recipe. You’ll be opening yourself up to a whole new level of sweetness.
Ingredients
Cake
- 8 oz (225 g) red velvet cake (about 4-5 cupcakes, or any cake scraps you may have)
- 2 oz (60 g) butter
Filling
- 1 8oz (225 g) packet cream cheese
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy cream
- 3/4 cup (180 ml) powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla or extract of your choice
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
- Crumble cake into tiny pieces and spread out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Bake for about 15 minutes at a time, rotating the pan if necessary, and touching the crumbs to see if they’re dried out.
- Once the crumbs are dry to your touch, it’s ready!
- Remove from oven and let cool.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Toss all the crumbs (which should be hard) into a food processor and add the butter.
- Pulverize until it combines into a paste. You may want to add more butter according to preference (more buttery taste, or more paste-like).
- Spray an 8×8 baking pan with nonstick spray (or put parchment paper on it) and press the base into it until it’s completely covered and flat.
- Bake for about 8 minutes, then remove and let cool completely before spreading filling on top.
Filling
- Beat the cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth and fluffy.
- In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream to nearly stiff peaks, then add the whipped cream into the cheese mixture and quickly and briefly beat to combine.
- Do not over beat.
- Spread over the cooled cake base and chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes before consuming.
Notes
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 bar
- Calories: 310
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the recipe start by baking the cake crumbs at 200°F?
The low-temperature bake (about 15 minutes at a time, rotating the pan as needed) dries out the crumbled red velvet cake until the pieces harden to the touch. Once dry, the hardened crumbs go into a food processor with 2 oz of butter to form a paste-like crust base.
Why should I avoid over-beating the filling?
The instructions explicitly say “do not over beat” after folding the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. Over-beating deflates the stiff peaks, resulting in a denser, less airy filling instead of the light, fluffy texture you want.
How long do these bars keep, and how should I store them?
The notes say to store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. 
Yum! Thanks for the recipe! I always have cake scraps lying around — and this is an awesome way to do something productive with them intead of shoveling them into my… ahem mouth.