When I was in high school, if a class did well on a standardized test, or if they made the most money off of a fundraiser, they were rewarded with food. Most of the time the food-reward was a pizza party, but every so often we’d decide to have a BYOS (Bring Your Own Snack) potluck.
And I know what you’re thinking, A bunch of high school kids cooking? Psshaw. But no, we didn’t end up with just a bunch of glossy bags of chips and canisters of premade dip. Oh no.
Most of the students (and their parents) got involved with the homemade, snack-centric potlucks, and I can still remember my classmates specialties: Caitlin always brought sausage balls, Stacie always brought the popcorn-m&m-white chocolate mix, and my friend Lyndsey always made this delicious sopapilla cheesecake. 
For years I struggled to find the recipes to those three dishes. We had all moved away and grew up, so I had a difficult time trying to recreate each one. However, Lyndsey did send me the recipe to her famous cheesecake a couple of years ago. I finally decided to whip it up on Saturday and—SUCCESS! It tasted exactly as I remembered: creamy cheesecake nestled between two cinnamony sheets of pastry reminiscent of Mexican sopapillas. 
I ate a piece of the cheesecake while reveling in my high school memories. I then sent the rest of the 9×13 pan with Rob to work for our coworkers to try and they LOVED it! The pan came back scraped clean 🙂
Sopapilla Cheesecake
- 2 (8 oz, each) packages cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 (8 oz.) cans refrigerated crescent rolls
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup honey
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9×13″ baking dish with cooking spray. Meanwhile, beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla together with an electric mixer until smooth.
- Unroll the cans of crescent rolls and roll out dough with a rolling pin into two rectangle shapes of the 9×13″ pan. Press one sheet of dough into the bottom of the baking dish.
- Spread cream cheese mixture on top of dough and then cover with the remaining sheet of dough.
- In a small bowl, cream together sugar, cinnamon and butter until well combined. Dot the top of the cheesecake with the butter mixture evenly.
- Bake until dough is puffed and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Cut into 12 servings. Serve with honey, to be drizzled on top.
It is kind of sad that instead of high school potlucks, I now have work potlucks, but it was fun taking a trip down memory lane while eating this! If you love sopapillas, and you love cheesecake, there’s no way you WON’T love this fantastic combo. Enjoy!
-Leen
