These Frosted Cream Cheese Sugar Cookie Bars are the perfect dessert for Spring or Easter and can be easily adapted for any occasion! Just change the sprinkles and coloring and you have a whole new look!

There's not only cream cheese in the frosting of these cookie bars but there's also cream cheese in the sugar cookie dough. It makes for a chewy cookie bar that adds a touch of tang and cuts the sweetness just a bit.

How to make Frosted Cream Cheese Sugar Cookie Bars:

The first step (besides heating the oven) is preparing your pan so your cookie bars won't stick. If you plan on storing these in the pan, you can just use a non-stick spray. I like to lift them out of the pan to slice and serve these so I line my pan with either aluminum foil or parchment paper AND spray with non-stick spray.

Once your pan is ready, you can start making the cream cheese cookie bar dough. It's a really simple dough and only uses one bowl! I just use an electric hand mixer for this part but you could also use a stand mixer if you'd like.

Once you've mixed the wet ingredients, you can add in the dry. Like I said before, this part is all in one bowl. Mainly because I hate washing extra dishes but it works perfectly. Just sprinkle the top of the wet ingredients evenly with the flour. Then (before mixing) sprinkle the baking powder and salt over the flour. Then you can mix the dry ingredients into the wet just until combined.

The dough will be somewhat sticky. In order to spread it into the pan, I just spray a bit of non-stick spray on my clean hands and then press the dough with my hands. You could also cover it with a sheet of parchment paper and use that to spread it out.

You'll bake the cookie bars in the oven just until the edges are golden brown. The bad news is...you have to let these completely cool before frosting them. Because this is a cream cheese frosting with butter in it, it will just melt if it gets warm.

How to make cream cheese icing for cookie bars:

All you have to do is mix the softened cream cheese, butter, vanilla, salt, and powdered sugar together with a hand mixer. If you want to thin it out a bit, you can add in the milk. If you like a thicker frosting, just leave out the milk.

I used gel coloring to make these a fun spring color and I also found some Spring sprinkles (say that 5 times fast!!). You can change out the colors or sprinkles to make these for any holiday or party!

How to slice cookie bars:

These are so much easier to slice neatly when they are chilled a bit and the icing is on the firmer side. Also, you'll want to wipe the knife in-between each slice to give you a nice clean edge on the cookies.