Your entire family will fall in love with the flavors of this Caramel Pretzel Cake! Perfect for any occasion, and always perfection in taste.
So my oldest turned 15 yesterday. He’s my gentle giant coming in at 6’3 ft tall, and wearing a size 14 shoe! ACK! He’s a tall drink of water, but can eat everything out of the fridge. The funny thing is (or the good thing is) he loves more mature flavors. The boy loves brussel sprouts, green beans, carrot cake, prefers wheat bread and all the in between things you typically have to beg your kids to eat. So when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday cake he said maybe something caramel or maple flavored. So here’s what I made for his birthday, a Caramel Pretzel Cake.
This Caramel Pretzel cake is that rich buttery cake base we all love, with gooey sweet and salty homemade caramel frosting we all love to drool over. (Full disclosure: the cake part is from a cake mix!)
The homemade caramel frosting and the toppings puts this Caramel Pretzel Cake over the top! All the flavors marry together perfectly, and it’s the best flavor explosion in your mouth when you take a bite!
Here’s how I made this Caramel Pretzel Cake:
1 box of buttery yellow cake mix – prepared & baked according to the back of the box. Once baked, allow to cool completely.
For the homemade delicious Caramel Frosting:
1 cup of butter (2 sticks)
1 box brown sugar
2/3 cup of evaporated milk
1 box of powered sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla
In a medium saucepan on medium heat, melt & mix your butter and brown sugar together. Add your evaporated milk & stir occasionally, and allow to boil slightly for about 5 minutes.
Set aside your saucepan, and allow your mixture to cool.
Once cool, add your sifted box of powered sugar, mix with mixer until completely smooth. (I did this all in my medium sauce pan. Just make sure it’s not a small one, or you’ll have a mess.)
Add vanilla and mix together lightly.
I let my frosting stand for a bit to get a little thick, before spreading in between my layers of cake, top and sides.
For the toppings:
About 2 cups of pretzels – slightly crushed
1 cup (or so) of chocolate chips (I had espresso chocolate chips on hand, and they were delicious as a topping, but not necessary.*)
A handful of Maple Peanuts
Chocolate Drizzle – such as Hershey’s.
*I also had on hand just a little bit of leftover cream cheese frosting from this recipe from last week. So I used that up to make dollops of cream cheese frosting swirls. Again, not necessary, but I wanted to use it up.*
Other ideas for this cake:
- You can absolutely use your own cake recipe! I needed something quick & easy…because life!
- Yes, use chocolate chips, butterscotch, caramel – whatever you like as a topping!
- You do not have to include the maple peanuts, or any nuts. These maple peanuts are his favorite, so I wanted to incorporate them into his cake.
You can find the Espresso Chips here or here. I must add, they are SO delicious & addicting! The Brach’s Maple Nut Goodies can be found here. Sometimes, I’m lucky enough to find them at the Dollar Tree, but not too often.
Please let me know if you try this recipe! I’d love to see your creation!