I wasn’t always a chocoholic. I wasn’t. I don’t think . . .

But no matter my past preferences (or memory gaps), I am a big fan of the chocolate now. As in, if I can’t have a chocolate dessert, I don’t want dessert.

Unless I have to have dessert. (Right? This situation happens in real life, doesn’t it?) And if MUST eat dessert and no chocolate dessert is available, well, then, I’ll settle for apple. Apple desserts come in a close second.

Last weekend we had some friends over for dinner. When Mark and I were planning the menu, we settled on shredded beef tacos and jalapeno popper dip pretty quickly.

But we got stuck at dessert.

I wanted to make brownies – the easiest (when made from a box, which mine always are) and chocolatey-est dessert ever. But Mark thought the fact that I recently made brownies (from a box) meant I should make something different.

Now, I suppose I could’ve informed him that if he was so particular about what desserts should be made or not made, he could just figure it out and make it himself. But the thing is, I really like making desserts. It’s practically the only reason I have a Pinterest account. So, a dessert challenge? Is pretty much the exact kind of challenge I was born for.

[Fine. Perhaps I was born for something more. Good grief, I hope so. But this post is about dessert, so let’s just go with it.]

{Although…IS this post about dessert? Because now that I think about it, I’m nearly 400 words in and haven’t even told you what I ended up making on Saturday. (Granted, the title kinda gives that away. Never mind that.)}

So, to recap: Friends coming over for dinner. Taco dinner planned. Dessert challenge issued. My next step? Consult the Pinterest, of course – where I found a delightful photo or twenty of something called a “Sopapilla Cheesecake.”

Clearly this was The Recipe, and I would be the winner of The Dessert Challenge.

Mark loves cheesecake – and what better dessert to accompany a Mexican dinner of tacos than sopapillas? I mean, not actual sopapillas, because my mom and I tried to make those one time and it was a dismal failure. And on a day full of last-minute cleaning, a gymnastics birthday party for my daughter’s BFF, and deciding just how many types of salsa I wanted to fix for dinner, I really didn’t have room for attempting complicated puffy pastries.

So a fake sopapilla combined with a fake cheesecake seemed like the perfect solution. And it was.

Oh wait! I forgot to tell you the best part. In the comments of the recipe blog post, readers shared variations of this dessert – including one with apple pie filling. WHAT! Apple dessert. In a husband-approved cheesecake. And a Mexican dinner-complementing sopapilla. It was obviously a Dessert Challenge Trifecta.

Apple Sopapilla Cheesecake
Source: My Chocolate Therapy

2 cans crescent rolls
2 8 oz packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 can apple filling
1/4 cup butter, melted
Cinnamon and sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (the recipe recommended 325 degrees if you’re using a glass pan, which I did, but it took an extra long time to bake). Unroll one can of crescents and smush the seams together, forming one 9×13 rectangle. Place that in a 9×13 pan (surprise!). Mix together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla, then spread the mixture over the dough. Pour can of apple filling (or can of fried apples) over the cream cheese mixture. Unroll, smush and spread the remaining can of crescent rolls, then place over the apples. Brush melted butter over the top of the dough, and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake for 20-30 minutes.

You can serve it warm or cold. We ate it – and loved it – both ways. I didn’t actually add apples to the whole dish, because Mark wasn’t sure he’d like it. He was wrong, but that’s his loss. The apples cut the richness of the cream cheese mixture – and make the whole thing healthy.

What? It’s still WAY not healthy? Fine. But it was REALLY good – and I’ll definitely be making this again. Even if it’s not chocolate.

How was your weekend? What kind of dessert is your favorite?