Brown Butter Gooey Cake Bars

These deliciously sweet brown butter bars are made with a yellow cake mix and a cream cheese topping. You only need a small bite of these Ooey Gooey Brown Butter Bars so the recipe serves many!  

I finally booked AUSTRALIA!! WOOO FREAKING HOOOO!!! Bondi Beach here I come and the Whitsundays, well we haven't booked that little holiday within the big holiday but we are in the process. I am so excited to get away, I need a major break that is for sure. Work has been insane!!

This time two of my beautiful cousins are living in Australia so we are going to have a fun girly trip! I have already started researching Chocolate Tours of Sydney.. I mean come on!! Seriously, get in ma belly!! And Max Brenner!! Ugh, how I love thee.

And to be honest Max Brenner in Vegas & NYC are shit compared to all the Max Brenners in Australia, and I went to many- anyone that we saw we visited. I am sure my cousin Lucy is thinking oh no they are coming again, I am going to have to spend so much time at Max Brenner. She hated it, but secretly I think she loved it. We would go in and order 8 things for 3 of us. Ha it was fabulous!!!!! Waffles, ice cream, chocolate, strawberries, bananas, caramel, drinking chocolate... the list goes on.

I have one regret in life, and that was the first night we were in Australia we went to dinner but I had caught a 48 hour fever, sickness thingy so after dinner Lucy suggested going to Max Brenner and I turned it down, little did I know I would spend every single other day in Australia at Max Brenner. Lesson learned, DO NOT TURN DOWN A CHOCOLATE BAR!

Another thing  I am excited about is the banana bread. Everyone eats banana bread for breakfast there. And toasted with buttah allll over it! Which is lovely cuz people in the States think I am a freak for slathering buttah all over my banana bread. But damn it is so good!! Oh, I can imagine it now.

So naturally, in order to get ready for Australia, my diet is consisting of only Brown Butter Gooey Cake Bars. The healthiest thing around. HA! I wish. I went to TJS and bought salad and Brussel sprouts and artichoke hearts.  But on the real though, these bars. Everyone LOVED THEM! One guy at work said he liked them cuz they weren't that sweet. He is straight tripping- they are sweet but amazingly sweet. Like, go make these now.

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• Ingredients
• Instructions
• More bar recipes
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Ingredients

For this delicious bar recipe you will need:

• Yellow Cake Mix. You'll need one standard 15.25oz box of yellow cake or butter cake mix.
• Butter. I've used both salted and unsalted and don't notice too much of a difference since the cake mix already has salt in it. We will brown the butter for a deeper, nuttier, caramelized flavor profile. You can check this post on how to make Brown Butter. Since you need 4oz of browned butter I would brown 6oz as some of the liquid butter will evaporate when browning it.
• Eggs. We use the eggs in both the crust and topping. Eggs need to be at room temperature to properly incorporate into the rest of the ingredients. You can get your eggs at room temperature quickly by placing the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes before using them.
• Cream Cheese. It is crucial that your cream cheese is completely softened to room temperature, trust me, if not this will ruin the end product!
• Pure Vanilla Extract. Do yourself a favor and use the real stuff!
• Confectioners Sugar. Also known as powdered sugar this sugar melts into the cream cheese making a perfectly smooth batter, just what we want!

Instructions

First things first let's preheat the oven to 350F/180C. You need your oven properly heated for the bars to cook correctly. Also, line a 9-inch square pan with foil so that the foil overhang on the sides- this will help you remove the bars later. Then make sure to spray every nook and cranny with non-stick spray.

Now let's brown this butter. You want to make sure to give complete attention to browning butter otherwise you can easily end up with burnt butter!

In a large bowl combine the cake mix, egg and brown butter.

Mix together until completely combined.

I like to use a spatula to help me push the cake batter into an even layer.

Now for the topping! It is based off of cream cheese so please I beg of you make sure your cream cheese is completely softened to room temperature.

Beat the cream cheese for a minute or two, it should be completely soft, light and fluffy, with no lumps.

Mix in the confectioners sugar then add the egg and vanilla extract. After combined add the second egg. Make sure to scrape down the bowl to ensure everything is evenly combined.

Your batter should be on the thinner side with no lumps.

Pour on top of the crust and bake the bars.

You want the middle to be set but still a bit jiggly, so you have the soft topping.

Let the bars cool completely before slicing- you can see in my old photo at the bottom of the post that I cut those bars before they were completely cool so the topping had not set fully. In these new photos you can see the soft, thick gooey topping but it has set properly since I let them cool completely.

More bar recipes

My nieces and nephew go nuts for these M&M brownies, and truth be told so do all the adults!

I love cheesecake but cheesecake in bar form is even better! Check out my chocolate cheesecake bar recipe for heaven in a bite!

My friend Cosette makes the most delicious apricot bars, soo good!

For extra special cookies check out my frosted sugar cookies recipe.

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Recipe Adapted From Tablespoon

This post was originally published on February 14, 2021 as of March 2021 the photos and text have been updated. The old photos show the bars cut way too early, the updated photos show the bars completely set.