With layers of buttery puff pastry, creamy cheesecake, and sweet caramel, these easy biscuity bars from Nadiya Hussain’s Everyday Baking make an excellent snack.
These bars are so yummy with their layers of buttery puff pastry (easy shop-bought!), biscuity coconut crumb and cheesecake filling dotted with soft caramels, all topped with even more of that crumb and pastry under a sweet crunchy top. All the flavours of butterscotch with its caramels and vanilla, plus a sweet hint of coconut and spice. Pure and utter joy!
This recipe is for a 20cm square cake tin, however you can slightly alter your quantities if you have a differently-sized tin.
Serves: 10
Equipment: square cake tin (preferably 20cm), food processor
INGREDIENTS
- 500g block of puff pastry, defrosted
- 200g speculoos biscuits
- 50g desiccated coconut, toasted
- 75g salted butter, melted
For the filling:
- 600g full-fat cream cheese
- 1 vanilla pod
- 50g caster sugar
- 1 medium egg, beaten
- 2 tbsp plain flour
- 100g soft caramels, chopped
For the top:
- 15g unsalted butter, melted
- 30g caster sugar
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
METHOD
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Start by lining the base and sides of a 20cm square cake tin. Preheat the oven to 190°c/fan 170°c/gas mark 4.
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Cut the pastry in half. Take one rectangle of dough and squash it into a round ball – the aim is to still have a buttery dough but with fewer layers. Do this to both pieces. Now roll out the pastry into a rough square and trim to a 20cm square to fit the cake tin. Do this to both mounds of pastry. Place one square of pastry in the base and keep the other one off to the side.
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Put the biscuits into a food processor and blitz to a fine crumb. Pour into a bowl with the toasted coconut and butter and mix well. Add half of the crumb mixture right on top of the pastry in the tin and push that into the pastry.
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To make the filling, put the cream cheese into a bowl. Scrape out the seeds of the vanilla pod and add to the cream cheese along with the sugar, egg and flour and mix well. Stir in the chopped caramels. Pop the mixture all over the biscuit crumb.
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Now add the remaining biscuit crumb in another layer and then the second square of pastry on top. Push it down to create an even, flat layer.
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Brush the top with melted butter. Mix the sugar with the nutmeg and cinnamon and sprinkle all over the top. Bake for 35-40 minutes.
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Take out and leave in the tin till completely cool. Chill for 2 hours and then, after all the waiting, it is ready to cut into bars and eat.
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