Archive for: butterscotch
When I was a kid, I never really had butterscotch pudding. I liked vanilla and chocolate puddings and often campaigned to see pudding cups in the fridge or in my lunch. Butterscotch puddings seemed overly sweet, even to me, when I had them so it just wasn’t a go-to flavor for me. That said, the first time I had homemade butterscotch pudding, I was a convert. Silky smooth and not too sweet in spite of its rich brown sugar flavor, homemade butterscotch pudding had me hooked from the first bite.
This is my version of Classic Butterscotch Pudding, a recipe I’ve been making in one form or another for years now. It gets its butterscotch flavor from dark brown sugar and a small amount of butter that is added to it. There isn’t enough butter to make the pudding taste buttery, but there is enough to ensure a clear butterscotch flavor. The finished pudding is not too sweet and it has a very good balance of brown sugar, dairy and vanilla that makes it quite addictive. Fortunately, since the pudding is neither too sweet nor too heavy, there is nothing wrong with giving into the addiction and having a second serving. Dark brown sugar is going to give you the best finished product and the richest butterscotch flavor. That said, golden brown sugar and even light brown sugar will still work well and produce a tasty pudding.
I also really like the consistency of this pudding. It is not too thick and not too thin, but a silky smooth medium somewhere in between. If you do like your pudding on the thicker side, add an extra 1/2 tbsp cornstarch to thicken it up a bit more. When I make pudding, I’ll use any kind of milk I have in the fridge, whether it is whole or skim milk. Whole milk will always make a slightly richer pudding, but skim milk will actually work out just fine if that is all you have. I recommend using whole milk or at least reduced fat for a pudding that has the best balance and as creamy a texture as possible.
+Continue Reading
Butterscotch may conjure up images of hard, toffee-like candies, but the building blocks of butterscotch are just brown sugar, butter and vanilla and it is easy to infuse a butterscotch flavor into many different recipes by using these elements. These Butterscotch and Walnut Blondies are a perfect example. The blondies use a generous amount of brown sugar that melds well with the flavor of the butter in the blondie batter and delivers a rich and not-too-sweet butterscotch flavor to these satisfyingly chewy bar cookies.
The blondies are easy to make and only require a few ingredients, all of which you probably have in your pantry if you bake on a regular basis. The most important element of these brownies is the brown sugar, which is what really gives them their butterscotch flavor. Light brown or golden brown sugar is the best choice for this recipe, as dark brown sugar will give the brownies a stronger molasses note that will dominate the butterscotch. Like my basic brownie recipe, these don’t use any leavening. This ensures that they keep a chewy texture, a very tight crumb and don’t become cakey or dry when they’re in the oven.
My favorite part of these blondies is the contrast between the chewiness of the blondies themselves and the crispness of the walnuts. I use untoasted walnuts, which still have a nice crunch but seem to have a more pronounced buttery flavor to them than toasted walnuts. You could use other nuts in these, though the walnuts work so well that they’re bound to win you over even if you’re not a big walnut fan.
+Continue Reading
Butterscotch chips are something of a novelty in the chocolate chip aisle at the grocery store. Butterscotch itself is a thick dessert syrup made with brown sugar and butter. It has a rich, buttery sweetness that goes well with many other flavors. Butterscotch chips typically have a brown sugar and butter flavor to them and are a much easier way to add some sweetness to a recipe than dealing with butterscotch syrup (which is much more difficult to mix into a batch of cookies!).
Butterscotch chips are generally made with sugar, some type of vegetable shortening, milk, natural/artificial flavorings and colorings to capture that amber butterscotch color. Guittard’s Butterscotch Chips are no exception, but unlike other butterscotch chips they use real vanilla and, while sweet, don’t have an artificial super-sweetness to them that some other butterscotch chips do. You can eat them straight out of the bag (which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend with some of the sweeter chip brands) or incorporate them into a favorite recipe. Besides the vanilla, you can easily taste notes of brown sugar/molasses with a hint of dairy in these. They are a pale amber color in the bag and bake up to be a bright orange. Some butterscotch chips I’ve baked with remain hard even after baking, but these soften up fairly quickly in the oven and leave you with a much creamier overall feel – in addition to a good butterscotch flavor – than similar chips of other brands.
Butterscotch is a great flavor and consists primarily of brown sugar and butter. As one of the primary flavor components is sugar, butterscotch can be fairly sweet on its own. This makes it a great candidate for salting – by which I mean adding a few extra pinches of salt to a recipe to give it a savory edge on top of all that sweetness. It works with caramel, and it works with butterscotch.
These cookies have a nice butterscotch flavor to them thanks to both butter and brown sugar in the cookie dough. They get another butterscotch kick from the addition of butterscotch chips, as well as a crunch from crispy, toasted pecans. They’re good as-is – slightly chewy and with a great combination of flavors – and aren’t too sweet in spite of all that butterscotch. That said, they’re even better if you take a pinch of coarse salt and sprinkle it on top of the cookies before you bake them. This trick adds salt in little bursts of flavor that melt on your tongue, giving the cookies an addictive quality without making them simply seem oversalted.
I simply designated the amount of salt to use below as “a pinch.” I used about 1 large pinch – less than 1/2 a teaspoon – for each tray of cookie dough that I put into the oven. Coarse salt, whether you’re using flaky Maldon salt (which I used) or a coarse kosher salt, stands out and you don’t need to use a whole lot of it to get the point across. Give each cookie a sprinkle, bake your batch and enjoy. If you find they need a little more salt, use a little bit more on the next batch. If you absolutely don’t have coarse salt, give the baking sheet a light dusting of table salt before the cookies go into the oven for a similar effect (although I really would recommend going for a coarse salt for this one).
+Continue Reading
A good scone should be tender and buttery, and while it may not need accompaniments like butter, cream or jam to improve the overall flavor, it never hurts to have some at hand to finish the scone off as you eat it. These scones are a bit of an exception, because they really need no accompaniment – no matter how much you like spreading a bit of jam on your scones.
These Butterscotch Pecan Scones start out with a buttery, light scone dough and are studded with butterscotch chips and toasted pecans. Butterscotch chips are quite sweet on their own, but work very well against the buttery but not sweet background of the scone. I used lightly salted, toasted pecans in these to make sure that they would contrast well with the butterscotch chips and the butterscotch drizzle that I added. Feel free to use unsalted nuts, if you prefer, but do take the time to lightly toast them in a skillet to bring out their flavor and make them just a bit more crisp before adding them into the scone dough.
These scones are great when they are fresh, because the scone itself is crisp on the outside and very moist inside, with a great combination of flavors in each bite. I’d make them shortly before serving, if possible. That said, they do keep well when stored in an airtight container, loosing only a little crispness but none of the flavor. If you must make them in advance, don’t glaze them and pop them back into a 350F oven for a couple of minutes to freshen them up before serving!
+Continue Reading
