Inside Out Movie Night: Sour and Sweet Emotion Lemon Bars

This shop has been com­pen­sat­ed by Col­lec­tive Bias, Inc. and its adver­tis­er. As always, all opin­ions are mine alone! #Insid­e­Out­MovieNight #Col­lec­tive­Bias

Our fam­i­ly is SO very excit­ed for the DVD/Blue-ray release of Dis­ney Pixar’s Inside Out movie tomor­row at Tar­get!!! We watched the ani­mat­ed film when it was out in the­aters and just loved the sto­ry of the main char­ac­ter, Riley, and all the emo­tions that strug­gle to func­tion and work togeth­er inside her head. My daugh­ter, Anabelle, par­tic­u­lar­ly loved her imag­i­nary friend, Bing Bong!

With each emo­tion the lit­tle girl feels, lit­tle mem­o­ry orbs are formed in cor­re­spond­ing col­ors, which inspired me to make these Sour and Sweet Emo­tion Lemon Bars for a fam­i­ly movie night snack! I just loved the premise of the movie and that it not only showed how emo­tion­al grow­ing up can be, but also that these feel­ings, hap­py or sad, are all valid and impor­tant parts of life. Since our mem­o­ries can be sour and sweet, I thought these lemon bars would be the per­fect treat! And why not col­or and cut them into lit­tle mem­o­ry orbs to make them extra fun?!

I head­ed to our local Tar­get for sup­plies, which is inci­den­tal­ly five min­utes away from our house and prac­ti­cal­ly a dai­ly stop for our fam­i­ly! I picked up all the nec­es­sary ingre­di­ents, along with a Bing Bong toy that I knew my daugh­ter would love! These Sour and Sweet Emo­tion Lemon Bars are super sim­ple to make and fun to involve the kiddos!

Mate­ri­als Needed:

♥  Archer Farms Lemon Cheese­cake bar mix

♥ 8 oz. pack­age Mar­ket Pantry plain cream cheese

♥ 3 Tbsp Mar­ket Pantry butter

♥ 2 eggs

♥ Small cir­cle cutter

♥ Food col­or­ing {4 colors}

♥ Mar­ket Pantry Bud­dies super sour can­dy {option­al}

♥ Mar­ket Pantry Rain­bow Sour Strips sour can­dy {option­al}

Step 1:

Pre­heat the oven to 350* and coat an 8″ pan with cook­ing spray. Com­bine the crust mix with melt­ed but­ter, then spread and press the crust across the bot­tom of the pan. Bake the crust for 10 minutes.

Step 2:

Beat the fill­ing mix with the cream cheese until com­bined. Set aside 1/2 cup of the mix­ture for the icing. Add the two eggs in the remain­ing mix­ture and mix for approx­i­mate­ly 30 sec­onds. Pour the mix­ture over the hot crust once removed from the oven. Bake 24–26 min­utes until the edges are gold­en brown and the cen­ter of the cheese­cake is set. Allow it to cool for approx­i­mate­ly 30 minutes.

Step 3:

Sep­a­rate the 1/2 cup of cream cheese mix­ture into four equal parts and tint each one with a dif­fer­ent col­or by adding 1–2 drops of food col­or­ing and mix­ing each with a spoon. Chill the cheese­cake in the fridge for a bit to hard­en it a tad.

Step 4:

You can either cut out cir­cles with the cut­ter, then spread the col­ored cream cheese mix­tures on each indi­vid­ual piece or spread the dif­fer­ent col­ors over the pan, then cut them out. Keep it mind it might be a lit­tle sticky, so you might need to wipe off the cut­ter every now and then. If desired, top them off with some sour can­dies to enhance the pre­sen­ta­tion and your movie-watch­ing experience!

These mini cheese­cake bar bites will make the per­fect snack to watch Inside Out with the whole fam­i­ly! Not only can you get every­thing you need to make them at Tar­get, you still have time to pre-order the movie on-line on Target.com to receive a $5 Tar­get Gift Card! Don’t wor­ry if you want to watch it right away… you can eas­i­ly order it on-line today and pick it up in the store tomor­row! Plus, the Inside Out DVDs and Blu-rays pur­chased there also con­tain 20 min­utes of Tar­get-exclu­sive bonus con­tent and delet­ed scenes!

Do you have some oth­er cre­ative treats per­fect to serve at an Inside Out fam­i­ly movie night?! I’d love to hear!

 

Merci Beaucoup!

This page may con­tain affil­i­ate links. For more infor­ma­tion, please read my Terms & Dis­clo­sure policy.