Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars

So my husband's birthday is on Valentine's Day.  As in, yesterday.  Lucky for him, I've never been the biggest fan of Valentine's Day.  I know that seems strange for a female to not really be interested in it.  I've never understood why you pick one day to suddenly show how much you love someone.  Isn't that something we should be doing every day?  So every year, I always tell Ryan that his Valentine's Day gift to me to keeping me out of the chaos that surrounds restaurants every February 14th.  I'd much rather stay home and cook Ryan a big birthday meal than go out and wait for two hours just to get a seat at a table.  No thank you.  Ryan's big meal this year consisted of his favorite meal - homemade spaghetti and meatballs with the homemade focaccia bread.  You might remember that bread from this post, perhaps?  I always want to make him a really good dessert to go along with his birthday dinner and that usually either means this key lime pie or something chocolaty.  But this year, I decided to change things up a bit and make something I'd never tried before.  The recipe seemed way too easy to be real but we pushed on anyway. 

Ryan and I love to eat at On the Border Mexican Restaurant.  One of our favorite things?  Their sopapillas.  You absolutely cannot go wrong with baked, sweet yeast dough that's covered with cinnamon sugar and then dipped into honey.  I mean, that's like heaven on a plate!  When I came across this recipe on The Tale of Two Kitchens blog (you might recall I got her delicious cookies in the cookie swap last December), I knew this was a recipe that I couldn't just put in my binder of "found recipes" and then forget about it.  It combined two of my favorite things - cheesecake and sopapillas!  Cheesecake!  Honey!  Sugar!  CINNAMON!! 

Here's the trick - it needs to be COLD when you eat it.  The taste is not right when its a room temperature or especially not when it's hot.  Just be patient and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours.  You'll thank me for it!

This recipe will easily reduce by half to fit into an 8x8 pan instead of a full 9x13.  Keep the cook times the same but remember to only use half of the can of crescent roll dough on the bottom and the other half on the top.  Feel free to use reduced fat crescent roll dough and reduced fat cream cheese (I think I used one full fat and one fat free - they were on sale) to make yourself feel better about eating the whole thing one piece.

Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars
courtesy of The Tale of Two Kitchens

2 cans of Crescent Roll Dough
2 8 oz. Cream Cheese, room temperature
1 1/2 c. Sugar, divided
1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
2 tsp. Cinnamon
2 Tbsp. Butter, melted
Honey (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350.
Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
Unroll your first can of crescent roll dough into the bottom of the pan, pinching the seams together.
In a mixer, combine 1 cup of sugar, vanilla, and both packages of cream cheese and mix until smooth.
Spread over your crescent roll dough.
Unroll the second can of crescent roll dough over the top of the cheesecake mixture; again pinching the seams together.
Brush the top of the crescent roll dough with your melted butter (use all the butter!).
In a separate bowl, mix your cinnamon and the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar.
Now go crazy and sprinkle all of the cinnamon-sugar mixture over the entire surface of the buttered crescent roll dough.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the bottom crust is slightly browned.
Cool completely.
Let it chill in your fridge for a few hours.
Cut into bars, drizzle with honey (if you like), and enjoy!!

Key Lime Cheesecake

I am a twenty-six year old woman and I am not ashamed to admit that I love, LOVE Disney and Pixar movies.  I will happily quote lines from The Lion King, Up (Dug!), Cinderella, Monsters, Inc., Ratatouille... you get the idea.  My latest "obsession" is with Gnomeo and Juliet.  I just love this movie!  It's so adorably cute!  I go around quoting it all day long and humming the songs from the movie (once you hear "Crocodile Rock", its stuck in your head all.day.long.).  I'm sure you're wondering what on earth this has to do with cheesecake.  Well, allow me to explain and tell you a slightly sappy story...

The blogosphere is full of people who cook and post their recipes.  Most of the posts are light-hearted and fun and full of cute anecdotes.  But every once in a while, you'll come across a post that just tugs at your heart strings.  I was searching through one of my favorite blogs (zoebakes.com) when I came across this post.  I'll save you the process of reading and just explain to you that just over a year ago, a blogger by the name of Jennifer lost her husband.  He was in perfect health.  She had popped out to get some groceries with her daughter and returned home to find him dead from a heart attack.  In a very brave post on her blog where she told the world of her loss, she requested that the people who read her post bake a Peanut Butter Pie in memory of her husband (that was his favorite).  One of her biggest regrets was not making him a peanut butter pie before he passed away.  She said that something always got in the way of her making it or she just decided to put it off in favor of baking something else.  That story really got to me.  I read the original post from her blog and her subsequent posts where she chronicled her daily life without her husband.  Yes, I cried - I cried a lot.  I don't like to cry.  At all.  Period.

Ryan is always asking me to make a key lime cheesecake and I, just like Jennifer did, put it off to do something else.  But when I read her post and how her grief showed through her words, I felt like she was speaking to me when she would mention that we may not have another day with the person we love the most and we should do what we can for them while we have them.  So I decided to not wait another day and make my husband a key lime cheesecake.  (end of sappy story.)

Okay, so what all does this have to do with cartoons?  Well, like I said before, Gnomeo and Juliet has been my cartoon movie of choice here lately.  (I mean, its GNOMES!  That's just beyond awesome.)  When I made this pie, I proudly went to Ryan and said, "This recipe has been made before.  A lot.  And now I've made it AGAIN!  But different."  He gave me a very strange look and I then explained to him that I was paraphrasing this:

It made perfect sense to him and gave him a good laugh.  Oh and he really liked the cheesecake too.  And isn't that what love is all about?  Laughing with those you care about over some good food?  (And I'm from the south where we celebrate EVERYTHING with food so that answer should obviously be yes.)

(This cheesecake is so simple it's ridiculous.  If you don't like using key lime juice, the original recipe called for lemon juice so you can easily make that.  No, it doesn't make lemon cheesecake.  Don't ask me why the key lime flavor comes out so much more in this and not with the lemon.  Blame it on the rain or whatever.)

Key Lime Cheesecake
adapted from my Aunt Betty's recipe

1 Graham Cracker Crust
1 8 oz. Cream Cheese (full fat please!), room temp
1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk (you can use the reduced fat version)
1/3 c. Key Lime Juice (bottled is fine)
1 tsp. Vanilla

Open graham cracker crust package.
Combine ALL remaining ingredients in a bowl.
Pour into crust.
Seal top of graham cracker crust package.
Open fridge.
Place in fridge.
Close door.
Refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.  (I've found it sets better if you let it rest overnight.)
(I told you it was so simple it was ridiculous.)

Dulce de Leche Cheesecake

I'm going to give you fair warning about this recipe - it's rich and the calorie count isn't pretty either.  Due to these reasons, the serving size is 1/12th of the recipe instead of that standard 1/8th or 1/10th (see below).  With that little disclaimer out of the way, I will tell you this cheesecake is delicious!!!!!  Honestly, it's so decadent, you'll be fighting with yourself to finish your small slice!  But it's well worth the effort.  Now, I shall try not to do what I'm about to do a lot.  I prefer to use ingredients that most people can find in their local grocery store because I always want people to not have a problem making these recipes.  However this is one recipe that will require a quick trip to your local Williams-Sonoma store (and my husband is asking, "There is a such a thing as a quick trip to W-S?"   He would be right.  I tend to spend lots of time {and money} there but I digress...) to pick up a jar of Dulce de Leche Milk Caramel made by Farmhouse La Salamandra (only $10 for one jar).  This is what it was made with both when I made it and when I tried it at the W-S store so I don't know how another jar of dulce de leche would work in this recipe.  If you have a dulce de leche caramel you like, by all means, use it!

The recipe originally called for this to be made in a 9-inch springform pan but it was easier to me just to grab a 10 serving graham cracker crust from the grocery store.  I cannot say this enough - you need the 2 extra serving graham cracker crust!  Do NOT use the regular 8 serving crust!!  The filling for this cheesecake is quite a lot and if you use the regular 8 serving crust, you filling will overflow and you'll have a big, big mess on your hands.  Next, plan ahead when making this recipe.  You'll need to bring your cream cheese to room temp and that usually requires around 2 hours of sitting out on your counter.  So if it's 5 and you're expecting guests at 6, forget about making this.  Make it the day before so it has plenty of time to chill and you'll be a-okay.  So now, the recipe!!

Dulce de Leche Cheesecake
(from Williams-Sonoma kitchens)

1 - 10 serving Graham Cracker Crust (*very* important that's it has those 2 extra servings!)
18 oz. Cream Cheese (Philly 1/3 Less Fat), room temp
3/4 c. Sour Cream (Daisy Light)
1/4 c. plus 2 Tbsp. Sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract (Nielson-Massey Vanilla Bean Paste)
1 jar (16 oz.) Dulce de Leche (W-S also carries a Chocolate Dulce de Leche and this recipe would work great with either flavor)

Preheat the over to 300.
Using a mixer, mix the cream cheese until smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.
Add the sour cream and sugar and blend until combined.
Add one egg at a time and then add the vanilla.  Remember to keep scraping the sides of the bowl while you're blending everything!
Reserve 1/3 c. of the dulce de leche in a small bowl.
Add the remainder of the dulce de leche and blend until smooth and is one uniform color.
Pour filling into your graham cracker crust.
Place cheesecake onto a foil-lined cookie sheet.
Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Cool on wire rack.

Now, what was the point of holding out that 1/3 c. of the caramel?  Topping!  Microwave the caramel for around 15 to 30 seconds and drizzle over the slices of cheesecake.

(Forgive the little air bubbles that formed.  Normally, I'd bang the pan on the counter but the crust was so full I didn't want to risk it!)

Calories - 466 per 1/12th slice (not including topping).

Easy-Peasy Cheesecake...

... in an Oreo crust.  How can we go wrong?!

I. Love. Cheesecake.  Period.  I have a few good recipes for cheesecake and I have a couple of GREAT recipes for cheesecake.  This recipe is being filed under the GREAT recipe section.  I've never seen a recipe for cheesecake that 1- has so few ingredients and 2-is so easy to put together!  This is yet another KAF recipe but I promise the next one won't be. This recipe is a wonderful recipe to use if you have the vanilla bean paste (it's available at Williams-Sonoma stores).  When you mix everything together, you'll see all the lovely vanilla beans spread all throughout the cheesecake.  It looks as yummy as it tastes!

Easy Cheesecake
(from kingarthurflour.com)

2 8oz. packages of Cream Cheese, room temp (Philly 1/3rd Less Fat)
2 Eggs
2/3 c. Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla (Nielson-Massey Vanilla Bean Paste)
Oreo Crust (or the standard Graham Cracker Crust)

Preheat oven to 350.
Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl using a mixer on low-medium speed.
Put the crust onto a baking sheet and pour all the filling into the crust.
Put cheesecake into the oven and bake for 33-35 minutes.
Set the cheesecake on a rack to cool and once it's completely cooled, transfer it to the fridge until you're ready to eat it.

Note:  The center will not look set!  The center will set as the cheesecake cools.

Calories in 1/8 of the cheesecake - 148 (filling only), 248 (filling and Oreo crust)

(forgive the missing piece... I couldn't wait for it to cool before I tried it!)