This is the first dessert I’ve made in months! Ever since I moved to Texas, I stopped baking altogether. I think I just lost the love for it, or maybe it was because I wasn’t baking for the same people anymore. I’ve always loved baking, but I think what I loved most was baking for the people I care about. My boyfriend and I decided to ease back into it by making ube cheesecake bars. The recipe was pretty straightforward: just mix everything together and bake. Like most ube desserts, this one also used both ube jam and extract. Surprisingly, it wasn’t from The Unlikely Baker, which is rare for me because I’ve loved all of her recipes so far. My boyfriend actually found this one and wanted to give it a try. The consistency came out really nice, just like a proper cheesecake. I don’t think we used a water bath (though I can’t remember for sure), but even without one, it turned out great. The water bath is mostly for preventing cracks anyway, and ours looked just fine. The color was super pretty. It was a rich dark purple that made the bars look so pretty. As for the taste, the ube flavor wasn’t as strong as I expected. It mostly tasted like regular cheesecake with a slight hint of ube. I think we could’ve added more ube jam for a stronger flavor. The recipe called for splitting the cheesecake mixture in half. We used one part as the base and the other for the swirl design and that probably diluted the flavor a bit. If I make it again, I’d mix everything together for a more consistent ube taste. I’d give this recipe 4 out of 5 cactuses. It was super yummy and really easy to make. If I could change one thing, I’d add more ube jam for flavor and reduce the sour cream a little since its tang was a bit overpowering. Still, it felt so good to bake again, and it reminded me how much I’ve missed it.