These lemon bars with cream cheese frosting are delicious with a pleasant light lemon flavor. They are simple to make and will please any crowd!

Name: Easy Lemon Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 24
Ingredients: 1 box white cake mix; 4 eggs; 1 can lemon pie filling; 8 oz cream cheese; 2 cups powdered sugar; 1 tsp vanilla; 1 stick butter

All of the lemon decorating around here lately was giving me a huge craving for something lemony. I had gotten a recipe for lemon bars from a friend years ago and I remembered how yummy they were so I decided make some and share them with you too! Trust me you will love these easy lemon bars with cream cheese frosting!

These lemon bars are not like traditional lemon bars. They are more similar to the consistency of cake which in turn makes them more light and airy. They are not super tangy like some lemon bars can get, they have a more subtle lemon flavor.

That being said, they are not dry like some cakes can get. There is a word I am thinking of but am going to refrain from using as it seems a lot of people do not like it. LOL Let’s just say they are very NOT dry. 😉

The cream cheese frosting is DELICIOUS! It is so light and fluffy and not too sweet as some cream cheese frosting can get. My mouth is watering right now just thinking of it. So good!

How to make the lemon bars

When I said these bars were easy, I wasn’t joking! The lemon bars consist of three ingredients. A cake mix, lemon pie filling and eggs. That’s it! Mix these all together to form your batter.

The recipe calls for a jelly roll pan to use to bake the bars. I didn’t even know what a jelly pan was the first time I heard that and certainly did not have one. Ha! So the first time I made these, I used a 9×13 cake pan. They still turned out alright but were a little on the thicker side. This time I went in search of a jelly roll pan and found something comparable at Walmart. Essentially they are like a cookie sheet but deeper. They are about 15×10″ in size and 1″ deep. This gives you the perfect bar to frosting ratio. 🙂

Here is a tip: line your pan with parchment paper first. Doing this makes it so much easier to get your bars out and makes for easy clean up! Pour the batter into the lined jelly roll pan.

Bake your lemon bars for about 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. Just a side note, the original recipe said to bake for 15-20 minutes. However when I checked mine at 15 and 20 minutes, they were still wet on the inside. So I baked mine for 23 minutes. The recipe also says to not overbake them. Who knows maybe I overbaked them?! LOL However, I was happy with how they turned out so I am going with the 20-25 minutes. I never said I was a professional baker. 😉 You may just want to check yours at 15 minutes though if your oven runs hot.

Using the handy parchment paper, I pulled the bars out of the pan and let them cool on the countertop so they would not overcook… further. 😉 Let the lemon bars cool completely before frosting them.

How to make the cream cheese frosting

The cream cheese frosting is also simple to make with 4 ingredients: cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla and butter. I softened my butter a bit before mixing and probably would soften the cream cheese as well in the future. Mix all the ingredients together and whip them until they are light and fluffy. This makes it not only taste better, in my opinion, but makes it easier to spread the frosting on the bars.