A year or so ago a coworker of mine who lives in Texas (whom I therefore take to be an authority on at least Tex-Mex desserts) gave me a recipe for Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars saying that they were her favorite and I would LOVE them. The recipe never made it out of my inbox and I kind of forgot about it until I sat down this past week and really racked my brain trying to come up with a Mexican-style dessert that was within my skill level and worked with my time constraints. If possible, I wanted to make it after I got home from work and before our guests came on the day of, because I really don't like making baked goodies 24+ hours in advance if I can avoid it. I don't know if it's a justified quirk, but it is a quirk I must live with nonetheless.
These cheesecake bars sounded really tasty, and the dough crusted with cinnamon sugar sounded like the Mexican flair I was looking for. I looked the recipe over and it seemed really easy, so I decided I had a winner.
The bars are very easy to make, particularly because the crust is pre-made crescent roll dough laid in a 13x9" pan. Pillsbury has even made this easier by making a version of the crescent roll dough sheet that doesn't have seams on it for just such occasions. They haven't made the cans any easier to open, though, and I still flinch as I pull at the label waiting for it to pop, and then when it doesn't, jab a spoon into it only enough to break the airtight seal and have depressurizing dough come squirting out of the hole. One of my goals in life is to successfully open a can of these damn things the way Pillsbury intended.
Anyway, back to the recipe. I was perplexed at the start to find that I melt a whole stick of butter, then leave it alone. I laid dough in the pain, I mixed filling, I laid more dough, yet the butter sat there looking at me. Finally, at the last phase before baking, you're supposed to dump an entire liquified stick of butter on top of the crust and then cover it in cinnamon sugar. Try as I might, I couldn't justify the entire stick. I poured more onto the surface than I wanted to and still had about a quarter of the stick left, so I trashed it. In the future I think I could probably use only 1/2 or 2/3 a stick and be quite alright. I also ditched the nuts and fruit from the recipe because they seemed out of place and tacked-on to me, like whoever made this recipe with a Mexican-style dish in mind got confused somewhere. Also, Jeff doesn't like cranberries.
I baked these for 25 minutes (since the cinnamon sugar made it difficult to tell how cooked the dough was) and they turned out great. We let them chill for a few hours and when I cut into them, they were spectacular. Really, there's no reason why gobs of sweetened cream cheese covered in cinnamon sugar dough shouldn't be. In the future, if I put the fruit or nuts back into them, I think I'd probably use pecans because they go really well with cinnamon sugar, and I would probably use apricots or another delicate flavor fruit to mingle with the cream cheese taste. I feel like dried cherries or cranberries would cut into it too harshly.
-Aly
Recipe:
2 cans crescent rolls
2 8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese
1 T vanilla (I used one tsp, not one Tbs. The Tbs just looked so big)
1 stick butter
2 cups sugar, divided
2 t cinnamon
dried cherries or cranberries
chopped pecans or slivered almonds
Preheat oven to 350.
Spray bottom and sides of 9 x 13 baking dish with Pam.
Melt the stick of butter in a separate bowl in microwave. Set aside.
Press first can of rolls into bottom of baking dish. Press seams together.
Mix together one and one half cups sugar, vanilla, and cream cheese. (I added a tsp of cinnamon to this)
Spread mix over crescent rolls
Over cream cheese, sprinkle the dried fruit and nuts.
Smooth out second can of rolls to lay atop that.
Pour melted butter on top of rolls and sprinkle remaining half cup of sugar and cinnamon on top.
Bake for 20-25 mins. and let cool slightly. Stick in fridge and let chill for at least 2 hours before cutting into squares.
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