Can you taste it??

In November, I entered a pie contest at our school. As much as I love pie, I don't have any that I make on a regular basis, so I brainstormed for some pie possibilities. Then, I remembered a scrumpdidliumptious pie that my grandma and mom make called Tollhouse Pie! That was to be "the pie", so I set out to hunt down the recipe. Like so many recipes, I found that there are about 101 variations to this delicacy. "How will I ever choose?" And, then I thought, who better to know how to make a Tollhouse Pie than Tollhouse. Hello?! No brainer. So, I headed over to Nestle and got the hook up. Basically, it's an ooey goey chocolatey chip mass. Check it out here! Whipped it up and took it up to the school. We won 2nd place (a free turkey! and a Dairy Queen gift card!!). Rumor had it that the pie that won 1st was brought by the grandma of a student seen filling the ballot box with votes. But that's neither here nor there, we were excited about our turkey!

Well, one of Ernie's coworkers saw how much everyone enjoyed the pie tasting and devised a fundraising plan for his grade level. The faculty had a couple of days of inservice the week of Thanksgiving and he quickly started securing faculty members to pay $5 to bring a dessert for the last day of inservice to the 4th grade's "dessert contest" fundraiser. What? Pay to bring a dessert? Chalk it up to the good of the students and sign us up!!

Word of the Tollhouse Pie spread fast and the following day Ernie had coworkers asking if I was going to make it for the dessert tasting. Because I am me, I thought, why not mix it up a bit and bring something different. So, I contemplated the following days what dessert might secure us another win (because if I'm gonna enter something, it's to win....right?!)

After much thought, I was sure that I had a great idea. There's this yummy unnamed dessert that our good friend Amber makes occassionally. Everytime she makes it I eat way too much and think I need to ask her for the recipe. But, have I ever done that, NO! So, now it's the night (like 7:30 PM) before the dessert contest and I FINALLY pick up the phone to call and ask for the recipe. Problem is, Amber is the wonderful mama of a sweet newborn boy who has a hard time settling in for sleep at night. So, I leave a message and resist the temptation to stalk her by then calling her husband's cell. Instead, I stalk all of our mutual friends....like 6 of them. Everyone knows the dessert I'm talking about, but NONE of us know it's name and NONE of us have the recipe. So, I head out the grocery store (I needed to go for something else anyway)

I'd heard her recite some of the ingredients and picked up the things I knew I didn't have at home....crescent rolls, cream cheese....better buy 2 of each in case I need 'em. By 10 that night, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to hear back from her until the next day. So, on to Plan B. The next morning, I got up and put together my Blueberry Apple Crisp that I love. And, if I love it, surely everyone else will too.

BUT, Ernie walked in the kitchen after it was all assembled and in the oven and announced if he couldn't take Tollhouse Pie there was no reason to take anything at all. All his coworkers were expecting the chocolately chippy mass and there was NO substituting. THANK GOODNESS I had all the stuff for a Tollhouse Pie, so what did I do? You guessed it. It was obvious Ernie felt deeply about this. His competitive side was emerging.....about a dessert contest. I'm laughing. So, I told him I'd bring it to the school later that morning. Of course, why mess with something that people were digging? I used the same recipe, but I substituted some of the semi-sweet chips with milk chocolate chips and added about a tsp of vanilla.

He called me early afternoon to announce that we'd won 1st this time!!! A prize of 2 tickets to Movie Studio Grill (yeah! always wanted to check out that place) AND 2 dinner certificates to some deli in the area.

Good grief, this post has grown WAY long than I anticipated. All of that and I'm just now getting to the original point of this post. Amber called back the day of the dessert contest with her unnamed recipe. And last night I had a reason to make it! So easy and rave reviews from all who tried it. But, then again, anything with THAT much cream cheese has GOT to be good!

Drum Roll Please......

SOPAPILLA CHEESECAKE

2 cans of crescent rolls or 2 cans of those crescent creation things (new product)
2 8 oz pkgs of cream cheese softened
1 cup of sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 stick melted butter

Spray nonstick spray on a 9 X 13 pan. Lay one can of rolls down. Mix together cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla and spread it on the first layer. Lay 2nd can of rolls on top. Drizzle with butter and top with cinnamon and sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Voila!!

It is SOOOO good. Try it out!