Raspberry Cream Cheese Pretzel Salad

11/25/15 — The recipe for the crust portion has been updated in order to achieve more satisfactory results.

This is another of those “everyone-has-it-except-me” recipes.  I have eaten this ‘salad’ lots of times, but have never made it for myself mainly because I didn’t have the recipe.  Soooooo…one day recently I stumbled across the recipe on someone else’s blog.  And then a couple of days after that I found it on yet another person’s blog.  And then I found it all over the place on blogs and foodie websites.  And now my own version of this umm…charming…recipe is on my blog so that I can find the recipe whenever I want it and won’t have to go snooping around the web for someone else’s recipe.

Crazy Dream Sequence

As I think about it, in that twisted contorted way that my mind works, wouldn’t that make for a really embarrassing nightmare?  Getting caught snooping in someone’s house for a recipe?  There you are in the middle of the night with one of those little mini-mag flashlights quietly rifling through your neighbor’s recipe stash with curlers in your hair. (Don’t ask me why you are wearing curlers; it just seems like the right thing to do in a dream for some reason.)

You get really absorbed in the great recipes you are finding and then suddenly the kitchen lights go on and your neighbor is standing there poised with his or her trusty baseball bat or fly swatter and a seriously shocked look on his or her face.  You, of course, are sitting cross-legged on the floor with recipes all around you stammering an apology and trying to explain that all you really needed was that recipe for the raspberry cream cheese pretzel salad that your neighbor made for the last block party and that you wanted it really badly at 2:00 in the morning and you didn’t want to wake up your neighbor to ask for the recipe at that time of the morning and would they please not call the cops because it isn’t really a break-in considering that you aren’t there to take any of their valuables and after all, they know you…sort of…but not really, because the real you wouldn’t be as ridiculous as to come into their home uninvited to get a recipe in the wee hours of the morning.

Your neighbors are dumbfounded by your behavior and stand there gawking as you make a hasty retreat out of their back door and over the fence clutching the cherished recipe.  We won’t mention that it would have been far easier to leave by the front door with no fence to climb, but after all, this is a dream so you take the hard way out through the back door and over the fence where there is now a barking dog chasing you trying to eat both you and your recipe.  Where did the dog come from?  You don’t have a dog and neither does your neighbor, but there it is chasing you and snarling and now your neighbors are standing on their back porch cheering on the dog.

You are just about to become dog fodder when you suddenly wake up, gripping the covers of your bed, being outrageously grateful to be in your own room and saying, “Holy crap, where in blazes did that insane dream come from?  What is wrong with me that my psyche could come up with such a ludicrous situation?  Oh no! …was I dressed or naked in that dream?”

You try to avoid your neighbors for the next few days just in case they somehow know that you dreamed about breaking into their house for a recipe.

Once Upon a Nyquil Bleary

Would you believe that I was stone cold sober when I wrote that bit of dream quirkiness?  I am always stone cold sober.  Never been drunk in my life except once back when I was 18 and Nyquil used to be 25% alcohol and I had a cold and my friend introduced me to the miracle of NyQuil, then sort of snickered to himself as he assured me that I would be feeling great soon.  “Drink it fast,” said my soon to be not friend, “It burns at first, but I promise that you will feel a lot better.”  My tongue went numb and I couldn’t speak clearly, but within a few minutes I sort of didn’t care that I was sick and had a fever and that all of my joints and muscles were achy.  I kind of liked getting colds after that.

True story, that one.  Now, of course, NyQuil has taken all of the fun out of getting a cold. They ixnayed ethay alcoholyay. You just take the NyQuil (alcohol-free) and for 4 hours your aches and pains magically leave, but you no longer get the buzz that was really kind of nice back in the 70’s.  No more holding hands with strangers and slurring Kumbaya with a stuffy nose kind of sound.

Reality and a Recipe

Well…didn’t I go far astray on those two adventures that have absolutely nothing to do with this recipe.  But, I suspect that you don’t always drop by here just for the food, right?

I ought to tell you that I had intended to post this recipe just prior to Easter because it is my understanding that this is often a favorite ‘salad’ served with the Easter meal, as well as an often used ‘salad’ for pot lucks.  Surprise!  I didn’t get this done for Easter, however I did rush out on the Monday morning after Easter to get the ingredients because I really, really, really had a craving for this wonderful creation.  Would you believe that my nearby grocery store was ought of stock of frozen raspberries?  I’m thinking that everyone except me must have made this salad for Easter and the stores didn’t plan ahead for the day after Easter, when of course, I wanted to make this salad/dessert.

It really doesn’t make sense to call this a salad because it is quite rich, but it doesn’t make sense to call it a dessert either because…well…I don’t know why.  In some parts of the country anything with Jell-O in it is considered a salad whereas in other parts of the country anything with Jell-O falls into the dessert category.  So,  I guess it’s a dessert salad…a sassert…a dessal…a deslad…a ladsert.  (How many nonsense word combinations can you make from ‘dessert salad’?)

As you can see I don’t need to be drunk on NyQuil or having a kooky dream to get all tangled up in nonsense.  I am amazing at nonsense.

Print Recipe

Raspberry Cream Cheese Pretzel Salad

This long time favorite walks a fine line betweeen being a "salad" or a dessert. The salty, buttery pretzel base pares perfectly with the sweetened cream cheese layer and the raspberry Jell-O topping.

Servings: 12 -15 servings

Author: Terri @ that's some good cookin'

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups well crushed pretzels -- can be crushed with a rolling pin or in a food processor fitted with the blade attachment
• 1/4 cup white granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 (8 ounce) block cream cheese (low fat is fine)
• 1 cup white granulated sugar sugar
• 1 (8 ounce) container Cool Whip (low fat version works great)
• 1 6 ounce box raspberry Jell-O
• 1 (10-12 ounce) package frozen, unsweetened raspberries

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350-degrees F.
• In a medium bowl, mix crushed pretzels and white sugar. Pour melted butter over the pretzel crumb/sugar mixture. Stir until well combined.
• Pour the pretzel crumb mixture into the bottom of a 9" x 13" baking dish. Spread evenly and then press firmly to form crust.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. If using an electric hand mixer, use the same process.
• Add the 1 cup of sugar and beat for 4-5 minutes until smooth (most of the sugar ought to have dissolved). Fold in the Cool Whip by hand.
• Pour cream cheese mixture onto the pretzel crust. Spread evenly all the way to the edges, making sure that there are no breaks between the cream cheese mixture and the edges of the dish. Cover the baking dish and put into the refrigerator to allow the cream cheese mixture to chill.
• While cream mixture is chilling, prepare the Jell-O. Bring 2 cups water to a boil. This can be done in the microwave by heating for 2-4 minutes on high. Pour the Jell-O into the hot water and stir until Jell-O is completely dissolved. Stir in the frozen raspberries briefly. Set aside to cool or put into refrigerator to cool more quickly. If cooling in the refrigerator, watch carefully and do not allow Jell-O to set.
• Pour Jell-O mixture over cream cheese mixture. Cover and return to refrigerator. Salad is ready to serve when Jell-O has set. Salad can be cut into serving sized squares or served family style with each person spooning out desired amount.