Vanilla Lovers Berry Cookie Tart Bars

This summery dessert is delicious & easy! A soft vanilla sugar cookie topped with white chocolate cheesecake, glazed berries, & drizzles of chocolate make this the perfect summer dessert!

This post is being sponsored by my friends at Rodelle featuring their amazing Vanilla Paste. As always, all opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting partnerships with brands I trust and believe in.

Happy Summer y’all!  I’m all about warmer weather, cookouts, and amazing “summery” foods like this Vanilla Lovers Berry Cookie Tart! It’s just so festive!

Living in Arizona I’m always looking for desserts that are light, easy, and require little oven time. This is one of those desserts. The cookie base is so simple to make and something you could make in a mixing bowl with a whisk and wooden spoon (or spatula). What I love about this dessert is it is definitely a Vanilla Lovers treat! The addition of fresh fruits makes this dish look so fancy yet we all know it’s really easy to make!

Gather your cookie ingredients

This recipe uses pantry (and fridge) staples:

• Dry ingredients – sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt
• Fridge – eggs and butter
• Star of the dish – Vanilla Paste

Chef’s Tip about Vanilla Paste

Vanilla paste is a 1:1 swap for Rodelle Gourmet Vanilla Extract or vanilla beans. You get all the deep, rich taste of the Madagascar vanilla beans just without the pod. It’s so convenient for Chefs and bakers as it’s in a pourable syrup consistency that not only gives your dish rich vanilla flavor but you also get to see all of the beautiful vanilla flecks! This product has been in both my professional and personal kitchens for years.

Make the Cookie Tart Base

For this recipe, you can use a stand mixer, an electric mixer, or simply a whisk and a spatula. Go with what you’re most comfortable with as this recipe is very forgiving!

1. To a bowl, add your butter and sugar, and cream until the sugar is incorporated and has dissolved.
2. Add in the egg, mixing until the mixture is light and creamy.
3. Mix in the vanilla and set aside while you grab your dry ingredients.

Vanilla that makes a difference

What I love about Rodelle is not only are their products amazing but also they are a company that cares and invests back into the community.

They have a direct partnership with Sahanala, a vanilla farmer co-op of more than 6,300 farmers, Rodelle maximizes efficiencies with a vertical supply chain beginning with vanilla farmers in Madagascar to ensure the highest quality beans are cultivated and picked. This means a fully traceable supply chain. And since it is a direct partnership, The vanilla farmers are able to invest back in their community with programs like new schools, a rice bank added access to medical professionals, safe drinking water, and more.

4. In another bowl, whisk together your flour, salt, and powder.
5. Add that to the egg mixture and mix just until combined. I tend to use a spatula for this process.
6. Line a rimmed quarter sheet pan with parchment paper and transfer the dough to the prepared pan.

7. Since the dough is sticky, cover it with plastic wrap and start to press the dough down into the corners and in an even layer.
8. You can use your hands to do this but I found using these pastry rollers so much easier to use.
9. Once it’s all in an even layer, replace the plastic wrap with fresh covering the pan completely and place it in the fridge for at least an hour.
10. To bake, preheat the oven to 350F, remove the plastic wrap and bake for 14-18 minutes or until the cookie has a light golden color. It will be slightly soft and have a little ‘give’ when you push it. It will firm up as it cools. This cookie shouldn’t be crisp.
11. Remove it from the oven and place the pan on a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely in the pan.

Make the Frosting

While the cookie base is chilling out let’s make this white chocolate cheesecake frosting. This recipe makes a lot of frosting as we love an equal amount of frosting to cookie base ratio.

Just like with the cookie base, this uses typical pantry and fridge staples:

• Dairy – softened cream cheese and mascarpone (You can use all cream cheese if you wish), softened butter
• Pantry – Confectioners’ sugar, Vanilla Paste, and melted (cooled) white chocolate

1. To a bowl, add softened cream cheese, mascarpone, and butter. Beat until light and creamy
2. Add in the Vanilla Paste, and white chocolate, and mix until incorporated. 
3. Add in the confectioners’ sugar and slowly mix until all are combined. Don’t forget to scrape down the sides to ensure everything is well blended.

Just look at those vanilla bean flecks!

There’s just something magical about seeing those flecks!

Cover the frosting bowl and place it in the fridge while the cookie is cooling.

Time to assemble!

1. Once the cookie base is cooled, remove the cookie from the pan and remove the parchment. Put the cookie back into the baking pan (you can opt to put it on a large serving platter as long as you can fit it in your fridge) and let’s decorate.

2. When it comes to adding the frosting, measure with your heart. You can put just a little bit on in an even layer or you can do as I do and make it an equal amount of frosting to the cookie.
3. Once it’s spread out, place the frosting cookie back into the fridge, uncovered, as you want the frosting to firm up a bit.
4. While the cookie is chilling out, slice up your fruit.

Let’s decorate!

1. To keep it simple, I opted for sliced strawberries and blueberries.

1. If you’re serving this around a holiday you can assemble your fruit to match that. I kept our simple with rows of alternating fruits.
2. Once I did that I used a bakery secret to make the fruit “shine” and then drizzled melted white chocolate over the whole thing.
3. Back into the fridge, it went for another 30 minutes to set, and then it was time to eat!

Chef’s Bakery Secret

If you really want your fruit to shine try a fruit glaze:

1. Take a few tablespoons of apricot jam or preserves, and a teaspoon of water or liquor and melt it down until it’s liquidy. Strain if desired and allow it to cool.
2. Brush it over the fruit.

Let’s eat!

This dessert is so stunning and always a show-stopper. As I was shooting this recipe my neighbor had stopped by to chit chat. When she saw what I was in the middle of her jaw dropped. She said, “Oh my gosh Lori! That’s GORGEOUS!!! Is it hard to make?”

I smiled, thanked her, and showed her the recipe. Her response was, “It’s that easy? Really? I can make this!” And she did – that night. She texted me later that evening saying her family raved over the dish and thanked me profusely.

She said she loved how “vanilla-y” it was and that the cookie was so tender, the frosting, decadent, and the fruit so fresh.

I sent her the link to order the Vanilla Paste as she wanted more on hand as she was taking it to her family’s cookout that upcoming weekend.

Farmer to Extractor  to You

Honestly, I could write pages upon pages as to why I love this product but I want to share more of why I love this company as a whole. I’m all about a company being transparent and having a conscious. Rodelle is that company. They have the most unique supply chain I’ve ever seen. Meaning they’ve cut out all of the middlemen, the extra stuff that sometimes makes a product lose traceability. Their process is super simple:

It’s literally Direct-From-Famer. It goes from the farmer to the extractor to you. This streamlined supply chain is not only better for the crops but also so much better for the farmers,

Giving back

When I speak with Rodelle I always ask what else they are doing to help give back to these villages in Madagascar. Every time we chat I can’t help but smile. To know they are putting the people first is everything. They truly do care about the villages and the people in them. In these villages, they have a staff of trained nurses and doctors that can help provide medical care beyond the standard government system.

They established a food bank to help provide assistance for the farming communities during the rainy season from December to April when food is scarce.

Be the STAR of the summer cookouts with this dish!

I’ve been making this exact dish for years and it’s the most requested summer dessert. It’s super easy to make, can easily scale to fit a full sheet pan, and is always a crowd favorite!

Make sure to order a few bottles of the Vanilla Paste, as you’ll fall in love with it just like I have!

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