Most years on the day after Thanksgiving I will do one of a handful of things: Black Friday shopping (on-line, people -not in the stores!), nab a Christmas tree and decorate the tree and/or my place or spend the entire day baking Christmas cookies. To be honest, it’s been a few years since I spent the day baking Christmas cookies and though I wanted to this year, I was bit pooped from spending all of Thanksgiving cooking. So despite the fact that I had pulled out a bunch of brand-new Christmas cookie recipes to try (courtesy of Food Network Magazine), I could not find the motivation to continue cooking.
This weekend I was craving something sweet and a craving can be the most powerful motivator of all. So I whipped up these blondies (yes, whipped-the recipe is sooooooo easy) to satisfy my sweet tooth.
The original recipe from Food Network Magazine calls for a tablespoon of actual scotch, which I did not have. I do not have scotch listed in the below ingredients. Rest assured that wikipedia tells me that “scotch” is not your standard ingredient for butterscotch so omitting the ingredient from this dish will not render the dish a fraud.
ingredients.
- 2 sticks plus 2 T. butter
- 1 ¾ c. packed dark brown sugar
- ⅓ c. heavy cream
- 1 T. pure vanilla extract, divided
- 2 large eggs
- 2 ½ c. all-purpose flour
- ¼ tsp. baking soda
- ¼ tsp. fine salt
- Flaky sea salt, for topping
directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on all sides; spray the parchment paper with cooking spray.
- Combine 2 tablespoons butter, ¼ cup brown sugar and the heavy cream in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally; continue to cook, stirring frequently, until slightly thickened, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla; set aside to cool.
- Melt the remaining 2 sticks butter in a large saucepan over medium low heat until the butter begins to bubble and spit and flecks of brown rise to the top; let cool slightly. Stir in the remaining 1 ½ cups brown sugar, the eggs and the remaining 2 teaspoons vanilla, then stir in the flour, baking soda and fine salt.
- Spread the batter in the prepared pan and pour the butterscotch sauce on top. Gently swirl the sauce into the batter using a knife. (This is nearly impossible to do in batter that uses browned butter so instead it’s fine if you just drizzle the butterscotch on top and let it sit.) Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt and let cool completely in the pan. Lift the blondies out of the pan using the parchment paper overhang. Cut into pieces. Eat as is or warmed up with a scoop of ice cream and some butterscotch or caramel sauce on top.
Recipe Rating:
Food Snob 