Pretzel Cake or Cupcakes

So I saw this strawberry-white chocolate-pretzel ice cream pop on Pinterest recently and knew I had to try incorporating pretzels in a cake recipe. Plus I think a lot of people love that savory-sweet combo. So. I present…pretzel cake.

Pretzel Cake or Cupcakes

Makes 13–14 cupcakes or enough batter for one 9″ round cake pan. Double the recipe if you’d like a full-sized cake.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup finely ground pretzels*
1/2 cup butter, cut into pieces
1 cup sugar
2 egg whites
2/3 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla

* I’d recommend using a food processor for this. You can also try breaking some pretzels into a plastic bag and then going over it with a rolling pin. If you try punching the bag or something though, it’ll rip open and you’ll get pretzel bits everywhere—ha!

Method

Firstly, in case you haven’t, you should check out my basic cake baking method and my list of cake baking tips! Every cake batter recipe I post follows that same method, and my cake baking tips are great tips to memorize for whenever you’re preparing a cake batter such as this.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk in the ground pretzels.

In a larger bowl, beat the butter at a high speed, and gradually beat in the sugar. Then, beat in the egg whites one at a time.

Now you will gradually be adding the dry mixture and the milk to the butter-sugar-egg mixture. To do this, alternate mixing in some of the dry mixture, followed by some milk, followed by some dry mixture… You get the picture. Do that until you’ve incorporated the dry mixture and the milk completely. Just don’t over-mix here.

Finish by incorporating the vanilla.

If you’re making cupcakes, pour the batter into greased or lined cupcake wells until 3/4 full and bake for 18 to 22 minutes. If you’re baking a cake, pour the batter into a greased 9″ round cake pan and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Rely on the toothpick test here for a perfect cooking time—a toothpick inserted into the middle should come out with some crumbs on it.