Sopapilla CheeseCake Bars

Photo by Madison Myers

allrecipes.com Sopapilla CheeseCake Bars

Traditional Sopapilla is a Mexican donut. It is made from leavened wheat dough and butter. When fried it puffs up leaving a hollow center. This recipe is great because you get all the yummy goodness without all the work! Gotta love that!

We were watching TV the other night and someone said they have Mexican food for their Christmas dinner, and that started up Madison's cravings! So I decided to surprise her on Friday with an appetizer dinner of different Mexican foods

This dessert went perfectly with our themed meal, and the recipe sounded so simple I had to give it a try!  It is best to make this up a day ahead, but if you don't have that kind of time, it is still yummy as long as it has some time to cool in the fridge

I made some slight changes to the original recipe as follows:

Ingredients

2 (8 oz) cans Pillsbury Crescent Rolls

2 (8 oz) packages Philly Cream Cheese, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

3/4 cup sugar, divided

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

• Spray a 13x9" baking dish with cooking spray.  Open crescent rolls and unroll into bottom of greased dish - press the seams together to seal. 
• In a blender, add the cream cheese, vanilla, egg, and 1/2 cup of the sugar. Blend well. You can also use a mixer or food processor - just get it all mixed together well. Spread this mixture evenly over the dough in baking dish.
• Open the 2nd can of crescent rolls and unroll onto a piece of parchment paper. Roll over the dough to close the seams. Pick up parchment paper and lay dough side down onto cream cheese filling. Remove parchment. If you don't have parchment - no worries - just unroll onto top of cream cheese filling, being sure to cover it and try to pinch the seams together. Don't make yourself crazy trying to close the seams - it will bake up nicely either way.
• Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.
• Mix together well the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and the cinnamon. Evenly sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of the dough after you remove it from the oven. Let cool and then refrigerate for several hours. Enjoy!

Photo by Madison Myers