Lemon Cheesecake Bars

You wanna hear a secret?

I have a whole stash of boxed cake and brownie mixes hiding in my cupboard.

Sure, I prefer a cake made from scratch, but these boxed miracles are quite useful when used for things other than simple layered cakes.

They are my shortcuts to homemade oreos, bundt cakes, and these lemon cheesecake bars.

Some days everyone could use a little shortcut, right?

Lemon Cheesecake Bars

1 pkg of boxed Lemon cake mix
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 egg

8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp lemon peel, grated
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Blend cake mix, butter and egg together with a fork and until a dough forms. Press on the bottom of an ungreased 13x9x2  pan. Set aside.

3. Beat cream cheese until smooth. Mix in powdered sugar, lemon peel and lemon juice. Reserve 1/2 cup of mixture and put it in the fridge. To the rest of the cream cheese mix, beat in eggs. Spread this over the cake in the pan.

4. Bake until set, for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely.

5. Spread reserved cream cheese mixture over cooled bars. Refrigerated until firm and chilled.