Southern Strawberry Pretzel Salad Cake

Alabama Bliss Bistro

If you’re a local in the Shoals area, you’ve probably heard of Alabama Bliss Bistro. If you’re lucky enough, you’ve tried their absolutely delicious Strawberry Pretzel Salad. (Seriously, you have to try it. Check out their page here).

I was recently inspired by one of their posts when I saw the delicious summer dessert and instantly thought “why haven’t I made this a cake yet?!”. 

Southern Strawberry Pretzel Salad Cake

Fast forward a few nights and through some taste testing, and we have this pale pink beauty full of salty-sweet goodness, fluffy whipped cream, fresh strawberries, and white chocolate.

The Layers

I debated on using strawberry cake layers, but pulling inspiration straight from the classic dessert, I went with cream cheese-based cake layers, baked directly onto a salty pretzel crust.

These layers are a bit different from my traditional vanilla layers, but they’re just as light and fluffy. They just have an added moisture and tang that let you know cream cheese is in the house.

The pretzel crust is baked before the cake batter is added on top, so it stays nice and crunchy even once the cake is assembled. Texture is always a must have.

Whipped Cream Filling

Some Strawberry Pretzel Salad recipes I researched had a plain whipped cream topping, while some incorporated cream cheese. I decided to model my filling after the latter.

This filling is just like the filling in my Cookies and Cream cake - it has homemade whipped cream (a staple in my house) folded into cream cheese and powdered sugar. It’s stable enough to hold up in this heavy cake - so another win!

Fresh strawberries definitely had to make their appearance, so they’re sliced and placed right on top of the filling.

Last-Minute Additions

At the last minute, just as I was about to assemble and decorate this cake, I had an epiphany - white chocolate!

White chocolate is delicious with all of the cake’s elements by themselves, I knew adding it to the cake in the form of a ganache between each layer would be a great addition. 

Strawberry Buttercream

Of course, we had to wrap all of these wonderful elements together with buttercream. The strawberry buttercream on this cake is a dessert in itself. It’s so sweet and tart - it makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

The beautiful, natural blush color is just an added bonus!

I know I say this often, but it’s true! I think this may be my new favorite strawberry cake.

Enjoy friends!