Summer’s winding down so here is your great dessert idea: Pretzel Jello!

I can’t be posting just technical stuff all of the time and so I thought while my wife was up late making one of my favorite desserts I would post about it.

We just hit our 22nd anniversary today and I wanted everyone to know what a wonderful wife I have. She’s a great mother to our kids and an excellent cook. She’s always looking for new receipes to keep a good variety to our meals and follow-up with an awesome dessert. Years ago my aunt Bernie made a dessert called pretzel jello and my wife has been making it for us several times a year. It’s a family favorite and she’s made a double batch for our niece’s birthday party on Saturday. I’ve seen it referred to as a side-dish, a salad and a dessert. It doesn’t matter because you’re gonna find it to be awesome! Plan to do this as an overnight process for best results. Here’s the receipe she uses:

Step 1:
2 cups of broken pretzel sticks. I prefer the salted ones since the combination of salt and sweetness of the mix is a great contrasting taste. You’ll want to break the sticks into a couple of pieces but, not into crumbs. These broken sticks are the base of the dessert. We use a small kitchen mallet and ziplock bag to crush the sticks.
3/4 cups of melted margarine.
Mix together and put into a CorningWear 9″x13″ pan. Bake at 400F for 8 minutes. Let cool.

Step 2:
8oz of softened cream cheese. Don’t use the fat free. Use 1/3 fat cream cheese.
1 cup of sugar.
16oz of softened CoolWhip. Don’t use the fat free. The low fat kind is ok. Do have it soft. If its frozen it won’t work.
Beat together the cream cheese and sugar. You can use a mixer to do this. Fold in the CoolWhip. Don’t use the mixer. You should do this by hand. Spread the mixture on the cooled pretzel crust. Put the pan in the refrigerator overnight to firm up.

Step 3:
6oz of strawberry Jello. Don’t  use the sugar free kind (in my opinion).
Two 10oz of frozen strawberries. The strawberries can sit in the refridgerator overnight so they are softer.
Dissolve the strawberry Jello in 2 cups of boiling water in a bowl. Stir in the packages of strawberries. Let stand for 10 minutes. Pour the combination over the cream cheese that is on the pretzel crust and chill the dessert.

The dessert will go fast at home or a party. Think about doubling the batch 🙂