My husband’s birthday was on Monday. When I asked him what he wanted for a dessert, his only request was something with caramel and pretzels.
I love that sweet and salty combination and immediately thought of a cheesecake. He liked that idea and I started thinking up different flavor variations.
Of course, the first cheesecake that I thought up contained chocolate. We all know that chocolate, caramel, and pretzels is a great combination!
However, since my husband isn’t a fan of chocolate, I figured I would make a dessert without chocolate in it. . . it was his birthday after all. 😉
Despite not having chocolate, the combination of creamy cheesecake and crunchy pretzels combines to make one highly addictive dessert! The crust is a combination of pretzels and graham crackers that is topped with a rich layer of salted caramel.
The vanilla cheesecake layer evens out the richness of the caramel and is perfect with a drizzling of more salted caramel right before serving!
- 1¼ C crushed pretzels
- ¾ C crushed graham crackers
- ¼ C sugar
- ⅛ tsp salt
- ½ C butter, melted
- ⅓ C butter
- ¾ C brown sugar
- ⅓ C half and half
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 2 (8 oz) packages ⅓ of the fat cream cheese, softened
- ½ C sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1½ tsp vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Stir together graham cracker crumbs, crushed pretzels, sugar, salt, and melted butter. Press into the bottom of a 9 or 10 inch pie plate.
- Bake for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
- In a medium saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar, and half and half. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Lower heat to medium and cook for 7-8 minutes until mixture thickens. Stir in salt one minute before finished cooking. Make sure to whisk occasionally to prevent scorching. Remove from heat and cool slightly.
- While caramel is cooling, prepare cheesecake. In the bowl of a stand mixture, beat together cream cheese and sugar until creamy. Add in eggs and vanilla extract and beat until mixture is smooth.
- Spread all but ¼ cup of caramel over the top of cooled crust. Spread cream cheese mixture over top. Even top with a spatula.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until center is set. Transfer to wire rack and bring to room temperature. Move cheesecake to refrigerator and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.
- Drizzle with remaining caramel right before serving.
This recipe is linked with What’s Cookin’ Wednesday.
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Mmmm!! Wow! This looks awesome! I love preztzels and caramel!
what an amazing birthday treat! happy birthday to your husband 🙂
This looks amazing! I love the sweet & salty combos in desserts too. 🙂 Pinning this one!
Wow! What an incredible looking cheesecake! I’ve really come to love it in the past few months and this looks just heavenly to me. The salted caramel flavor puts this over the top, so yummy!
Pretzel crust on cheesecake is just brilliant,,
This looks so good! Love the pretzel crust.
Love all the flavors in this cheesecake Jessica! If it were my birthday cheesecake, I would add some chocolate syrup on top too!
I love pretzel crust. This cheesecake has all the sweet and salty going on, and it looks spectacular!
I adore salted caramel!
While I loooove chocolate, I think that this is perfect just the way it is Jessica!
What a perfect birthday cheesecake 😀 I love salted caramel!!!
This cheesecake sounds amazing! Love that caramel and then the pretzels. My husband would love this too – he’s not a big fan of chocolate!
GASPS!! Oh my good lord! 🙂
This is like the cheesecake I always hoped for
Holy cow Jessica!!! This is beyond omgfabulous. LOVE. Happy birthday to him!
This sounds seriously perfect. Any dessert that has the sweet and salty combination going on is automatically a winner in my book :).
Now that is a gorgeous looking cheesecake!
Love pretzel crusts and this cheesecake sounds fabulous!
I really like salted caramel and I think it’s perfect with this cheesecake.
This is such a great idea – definitely birthday-worthy. My husband would go crazy for this combination as well….although I’m with you in the “everything is better with chocolate” camp. 😉
Happy Birthday Hubby! And what a smart man he is. Caramel and pretzels are the BEST!
My husband adores cheesecake. Possibly second to chocolate… but I guess it depends on the day! He would have happily devoured your early chocolate, pretzel and caramel invention (and yes, I agree that the triple-delicious-combination is an absolute winner!!). However, minus the chocolate… this sweet and salty cheesecake looks incredible! I can just imagine how delicious the crunchy, salty pretzel base would be when combined with the sweet, creamy vanilla filling and caramel sauce! You have one lucky husband Jess!! x
Jess, this dessert sounds fabulous. What a lucky hubby. This cheesecake sounds amazing.
Now this my kind of cheesecake! You know how I love salty sweet combos, especially where there’s caramel involved. This is awesome!
This looks amazing! Just the recipe I was looking for.
Pretzels with this is the best idea ever. Love it! Thanks for the inspiration!
Goodness Gracious this looks good. OH MY Damn…I love anything with caramel. I make a praline cheesecake that is similar, but this looks so good its insane. Printing this out right now.
How did I miss this a month ago. Looks incredible! Pinned immediately.
Absolutely one of the best cheesecakes EVER!! I brought this to school today to honor a new teacher’s birthday and it was cleaned out!! I am now making copies to share the recipe!!! Definitely a keeper!!!
The most fabulous combination of salty and sweet! Cheesecake filling not too thick or overwhelming – my daughter made this for my birthday last night and it’s a “keeper” already!
Oh, so happy to hear that! Thanks for letting me know, and Happy Birthday!
A wonderful addition to our family Christmas meal! It was easy to make–no need for a food processor–and everyone loved its sweet and salty flavor. The only thing I changed was I used more pretzels and a full sleeve of graham crackers to make a thicker crust (add more butter, too). Fantastic!
I never leave reviews but I really love this recipe!! I’m making it for the 3rd time in the past 2 months!
I’ve made it for 3 different events and people really love it. Someone even told me its the best cheesecake they ever had. The only change is I only added 1/2 the sugar in the crust because I wanted it to be saltier, I also added chopped pecans to the crust and to the caramel sauce. Great recipe!! I will keep making this cheesecake
I am so glad to hear it!! Thanks for letting me know! I love the idea of adding chopped pecans to the crust, definitely will have to try that!
Has anyone tried this in a traditional springform cheesecake pan? Just wondering if there should be any adjustments when using that type of pan? It looks amazing and I can’t wait to make it later this week!!!
Sorry for the delayed response! I’ve been having some major computer issues this past week. I have not yet tried it in a springform pan. I don’t think there would be enough crust as listed to go up the side of the pan very far, so you may want to take that into consideration.
You just made me weak in the knees, Jessica!
Oh my word. I’m going to need to take a moment. This sounds incredible!
Holy gorgeousness! I want this to myself!
Salted Caramel deliciousness! Love this!
I’m so glad I discovered this! I can’t stay away from the salted caramel pretzel frozen yogurt and I am super excited to find another way to enjoy those flavors. Thanks for sharing. Pinned!
Mmmm this looks delicious! Thanks for sharing 🙂
This looks fantastic! I’ve been dying to try a pretzel crust on a cheesecake for a while. My only concern is, will the pretzel crust go soft/stale quickly? Does anyone know how this holds up for a couple days? Thanks!
I haven’t had any problems with it going stale. Since it’s kept in the refrigerator, it stays pretty fresh. Hope that helps!
Lightly spray bottom of pie pan in case caramel gets through. Will make getting it easier. Otherwise everyone loved it
In your recipe it says 1/3 c half and half of what i didn’t understand this part of your recipe can you please
help!
It is a 1/3 cup of half and half, which you can usually find next to the heavy cream at the store. If you can’t find half and half, you can use heavy cream in its place. Hope that helps!
I am making this for NYE. My caramel didnt come out clear like the picture. Did I not cook it long enough? Cheesecake is in oven now, looks delish!
It could be a couple of things, but one thing that is easy to have happen is to have sugar crystals that are on the side of the pan that don’t get completely stirred in and dissolved. So, when you stir everything together to remove the caramel from the saucepan, those sugar crystals get mixed in and never completely dissolve. It should still taste good. Hope that helps!