Butterscotch Cream Pie

Fall is a time to go rustic, don't you think? And what better way to go rustic than with a pie! To be honest, I'd never really heard of Butterscotch Cream Pie before I stumbled upon this recipe recently, but once I did I thought it sounded delicious. Why are we not making more cream pies these days? To be fair, when you think fall, you don't really think cream pie, but when you think summer, you don't necessarily think butterscotch either, so this might be just the ticket to cross that divide.

Making any pie for me can be pretty annoying, though. I'm just not one with the pie crust, you guys. If it's your simple ground up crackers crust, great, but when it's this type of situation where I have to chill and roll and chill and blind bake and all that jazz, it always feels rather daunting. I need a better rolling pin, that's number one, and maybe it wouldn't be so bad. And, if I'm being honest, this crust did break on me when it blind baked. Does that matter in the end? Not really. Because you make the filling separately and it's already semi-set when you put it into the pie, it doesn't seep through, so it was really no big deal. And, it must be admitted that a traditional pie crust holds up a lot longer than a graham cracker one, which loses its crunch and crispness very quickly.

Does this pie scream butterscotch at you? No. It's a delicate flavor, and if I didn't tell you it was butterscotch ahead of time, you'd probably just think it was some kind of sugary cream pie. And you wouldn't be wrong. Essentially what you're making here is a pastry cream filling with a whipped cream topping. Ain't nothing wrong with that, friends. 

Butterscotch Cream Pie
Author: Jen @ Fresh From The…
Servings: 8
Prep time: 02:00
Cook time: 00:30
Total time: 05:30

A rustic and delicately delicious cream pie.

Ingredients:

Graham Cracker Coated Pie Shell
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
• 4 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chilled
• 3-4 tablespoons ice water
• 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 3.5 full crackers ground up)
Butterscotch Cream Filling
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 5 large egg yolks
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Whipped Cream Topping
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. For the Crust: Mix flour, salt, and sugar in food processor fitted with the steel blade. Scatter butter pieces over mixture, tossing to coat butter with a little of the flour. Cut butter into flour with five one-second pulses. Add shortening; continue cutting in until flour is pale yellow and resembles coarse cornmeal, with butter bits no larger than a small pea, about four more one-second pulses. Turn mixture into medium bowl.
2. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of the water over mixture. Using rubber spatula, fold water into flour mixture, then repeatedly press down on dough mixture with broad side of spatula until dough sticks together, adding up to 1 tablespoon more water if dough will not come together. Shape dough into ball with hands, then flatten into 4-inch wide disk. Dust lightly with flour, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate 30 minutes before rolling.
3. Generously sprinkle 18-inch work area with 2 tablespoons graham cracker crumbs. Remove dough from wrapping and place in center of work area. Scatter a few more crumbs over disk top. Roll dough from center to edges to make 9-inch disk, rotating a quarter turn after each stroke and sprinkling additional crumbs underneath and on top, as necessary, to heavily coat dough. Flip dough and continue to roll, without rotating, into 13-inch disk just under 1/8-inch thick.
4. Fold dough in quarters, then place dough point in center of 9-inch Pyrex pie pan. Unfold dough to cover pan completely, with excess dough draped over pan lip. Trim and flute crust.
5. Refrigerate dough until firm, about 30 minutes. Prick shell at 1/2-inch intervals to keep dough from ballooning during baking (illustration 5). Press a doubled 12-inch square of aluminum foil inside pie shell. Prick foil to prevent further ballooning. Refrigerate to let dough relax, at least 30 minutes longer. Note: I used parchment paper with pie weights instead of pricked aluminum foil.
6. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Bake, checking occasionally for ballooning, until crust is firmly set, about 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees, remove foil, and continue to bake until crust is crisp and golden brown in color, about 10 to 15 minutes longer. Transfer to wire rack and cool completely.
7. For the Filling: Dissolve cornstarch and salt in evaporated milk; whisk in egg yolks and set aside.
8. Meanwhile, heat butter and brown sugar in medium saucepan over medium heat until candy thermometer registers 220 degrees, about 5 minutes. Gradually whisk in whole milk. Once sugar dissolves, gradually whisk in cornstarch mixture. Continue cooking until mixture comes to boil; cook 1 minute longer. Turn off heat, then stir in vanilla. Pour filling into shallow pan (another pie pan works well). Put plastic wrap directly over filling surface to prevent skin from forming; cool until warm, 20 to 30 minutes. Pour filling into pie shell and, once again, place sheet of plastic wrap over filling surface. Refrigerate until completely chilled, at least 3 hours.
9. Whip cream to soft peaks. Add confectioner's sugar and vanilla; continue to whip to barely stiff peaks. Spread over filling and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Recipe from Cook's Country

Butterscotch Marshmallow Blondies

Let me tell you about these bars. They are sa-weet! Holy cow they are sweet! Like, whoa, I can feel the sugar in my teeth when I take a bite. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I suppose, but just be aware you are in for some suga' suga' suga' when you make these babies. Although, I did use more marshmallows than I should have, so that probably (definitely) contributed to the sugar bomb.

In truth, these are kind of a cousin of my Cookie Bars. Both utilize marshmallows to make the bars ooey gooey delicious. If you've never tried baking bars with marshmallows in them before, you're missing out. They melt and ooze out into the dough, making it extra gooey and yummy. These are even more oozey than normal, because like I said I did too many marshmallows, as I was cutting up large marshmallows to be smaller and that also makes them ooze out more because they don't have the exterior bit holding them back just a little.

See? These barely hold themselves together! If you want to go as crazy as me, then these are less bars and more like a cookie thingy you can eat straight from your pan for maximum laziness. Like a skillet cookie but in a square pan. That can be a thing, right? Sure it can, if we want it to. Do what you want, I mean, come on.

I mean.... you can barely tell where one "bar" ends and the other begins! They started to kind of merge into each other at this point in the photo-taking process. I also used a touch too much butter because I was in a hurry and wasn't measuring 100% exact, so just make sure you use the right amount of butter to not get too extra greasy. Unless you like greasy? Hmm. I'm not sure about that. Greasy french fries are one thing, but greasy bars are another.

Butterscotch Marshmallow Blondies

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup butterscotch chips
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup mini marshmallows
• 3/4 cup white chocolate chips

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Spray an 8x8 pan with cooking spray and set aside.
3. Melt together your butter and butterscotch chips. You can either do this in a small saucepan over the stove or in the microwave, zapping for 30 seconds and stirring and zapping and stirring until it's smooth. Let that cool for a little bit.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and brown sugar. tir in the butterscotch mixture until combined.
5. Stir in the egg and vanilla until smooth.
6. Add in the marshmallows and chocolate chips.
7. Spread the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until center is just set.
8. Allow to cool completely before you cut it into squares. 

Recipe via Cookies and Cups

Ultimate Cookie Bars

Let's just cut right to the chase here - I've made these before for this here blog. They are the famous cookie bars, and were one of the first recipes I shared when I started this thing. Which means the pictures aren't that great, and the recipe itself, while good, could use a little more tweaking.

It really is pretty crazy to look back at some of my old baked goods on here and see how much my photos have improved. Of course, it helps having an actual decent camera. Like, a lot. A bajillion amount, really. My old little point and shoot camera could never get these kinds of photos, no matter how hard I tried. It did not like super close-ups, no siree.

But let's get back to the recipe. Every time I'd made these in the past, while they were definitely delicious, and deliciously gooey, they would always do that slumping thing where, after you take it out of the oven, the middle would deflate down a bit, with the edges staying up higher. Which, of course, made the edges the least desired pieces, as they were almost always much drier than the rest. So I thought to myself, I wonder if this is one of those moments where I should use a combination of baking powder and baking soda instead of just baking soda in the recipe, and what do you know!

Voila!

Magic!

The middle did not deflate after I baked it. The whole thing stayed nice and uniform throughout. Hallelujah! I may have done a mini victory jig after I let the bars sit for a while after taking them out of the oven. You know, no big.

One other thing you may notice in the below ingredients that's different from the original is that I cut down the amount of sugar. The less sugar is for a very simple reason - the marshmallows add a lot more sugar to the mix themselves, and the original recipe wasn't accounting for that, so it was very much a sugar overload situation.

I also did one more optional thing on half of my bars for this go 'round - I added some dulce de leche to the top to give it an extra boost of richness. You can see the dulce versions in the very first picture up at the top and the first one below the recipe. The dulce made the marshmallows explode even more than normal, so if you want some extra flavor, you can totally add it, but if you don't, that's fine too, it just depends on what you like.

Hopefully you all like this slight change to the original recipe! If you end up making them, let me know what you think in the comments!

Ultimate Cookie Bars
Author: Jen @ Fresh From The…
Servings: 18 Bars
Prep time: 00:15

Cook time: 00:25

Total time: 00:40

Easy, gooey, and delicious for days. You can’t beat these cookie bars!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/14 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup butterscotch chips
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1+ cup mini marshmallows
• 1 15 ounce can dulce de leche (optional)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray a 9x13" pan with cooking spray.
2. In the bowl of your mixer, beat together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then beat in the eggs one at a time, beating for about 1 minute each until fully incorporated. Mix in the vanilla.
3. Mix in the baking powder, salt, and flour on low until just incorporated. You don't want to overmix here. Then, add in the butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, and marshmallows. I usually do this by hand so the marshmallows don't get too destroyed. Make sure all are evenly distributed. If you want your bars a bit gooier, add in more marshmallows.
4. Plop that into your prepared pan, and smooth out until even. Now, if you want, you can get crazy and add a layer of dulce de leche on top. For that, scoop the dulce into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave it for about 30 seconds or so, just so it's a bit more pliable. Dollop that onto the top of the bars, then swirl around with a knife to distribute it around. You can do more or less here depending on your preference as well.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the edges are golden. The middle can still be slightly less done, as it will set up more when you let the pan sit out for another 10 minutes to cool. You can adjust the baking time depending on your preference for gooeyness as well. The more gooey you like it, the less time you bake.

Butterscotch Cookies

I know not everyone is a big butterscotch fan, though I can't say I really know why! Because I do love me some butterscotch. My question, however, is this - what even is butterscotch? I mean, it's basically just sugar, right? Like, sort of caramelized sugar? I could be wrong. I could go research this on the interwebs and find out for certain, but who wants to do that? I like to just conjecture wildly! 

Anyway, I tried the whole chocolate chip cookie version of this, using vanilla pudding mix and, duh, chocolate chips, and they turned out pretty nicely, so I began to wonder just how a cookie using a butterscotch mix would taste. So here we have some straight up butterscotch chip cookies. I mean, these are full on. If you like butterscotch, you will love these. If you're not a big fan? Well, maybe steer clear. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Maybe in the future I will try a variation on these cookies that are more reminiscent of my favorite cookie bars. Those have chocolate chips and marshmallows mixed in, and are deliciously gooey and sugary. Marshmallows don't always work in cookie form, though, so some experimenting may be in order. Nonetheless, if you don't want to wait around for that, try these out!

Butterscotch Cookies

For the butterscotch lovers of the world, these butterscotch cookies are chock full of chips as well as pudding mix!

Prep time: 75 minutes (including cooling time)
Cook time: 10-12 minutes
Total time: 110 minutes
Yield: Approximately 2 dozen

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 small box instant butterscotch pudding
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips
• coarse sea salt (optional)

Cooking Directions

1. Whisk together your flour, pudding powder, and baking soda in a medium bowl. Set aside for now. In a mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugars until creamy. Then beat in your egg and vanilla until nice and smooth.
2. Slowly add your dry mixture into your wet, mixing slowly until just combined. Stir in your butterscotch chips. Then cover that bowl and stick it in the fridge for an hour.
3. Preheat your oven to 350F. Scoop out your dough, I use a scooper, and place onto a parchment or silpat-lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Then, if you want a little extra, sprinkle immediately with the salt. Cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then you can remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

(Recipe via Creme de la Crumb)
 
In Photos:

Whisk together your dry ingredients - flour, pudding mix, baking soda.

In your mixer, beat together your butter and sugars.

Then, beat in your egg and vanilla. Finally, mix in your flour mixture until just combined.

Then add in your butterscotch chips. You can totally use the whole bag here if you like, but I don't like an overabundance of chips in my cookies, so I only used maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of the bag. A very exact science here. Cover and stick this in the fridge for an hour.

Preheat your oven to 350F. Then, scoop out your dough onto your silpat or parchment-lined baking sheet. If you want some chips to show on top, make sure to stick some on. I'm still working on the best way to do this!

 Bake for 10-12 minutes. You can see they are just starting to brown around the edges. That's about right. Let those sit on your pan for 5 minutes to continue cooking.

Then you can remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Then eat to your heart's content!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats

Today I bring you a rice krispie treat that in my family has become something of a tradition for long road trips. While these treats are good on their own, when they've been sitting in the back of the car getting heated up by the sun as you drive, they turn into ooey gooey deliciousness. Not that they aren't gooey to begin with, because, my friends, they are indeed. In a good way, of course.

I decided to make these for a 4th of July get together this year rather than doing something complicated, because yes, these are incredibly easy to make. You don't even need to bake them at all, so the "oven" moniker there at the top is a bit of a lie. But whatever! Now, when I made this particular batch, they were too gooey. I think we normally put in more rice krispies than the recipe said to. It also seemed like the rice krispie layer was too thin as compared to the chocolate, so I'm putting the amount I think you should really add in below. But you can futz around with it as you see fit. You can even put in some mini marshmallows after you've melted the sugar and syrup together to give a little pizazz.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats


1 cup light Karo syrup
1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
6 cups rice krispies

1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips
1 1/2 chips semi-sweet chocolate chips

Boil the karo syrup and the sugar for about one minute. Remove from heat and add in the peanut butter, mixing in until smooth. Fold in the rice krispies until they are completely covered, then press into a 9x13 pan. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the butterscotch and semi-sweet chips. Start at one minute, stir, then go at 30 second increments, stirring in between, until they are smooth. Pour it on top of the rice krispie base and smooth out to the edges. Let sit for a while until the top has hardened. Bada bing, you're done!

The syrup and sugar getting friendly. 

After adding in the peanut butter, it turns a caramel color.

After adding in the rice krispies and flattened in the 9x13" pan. 

Now, with chocolate. Resist digging in and let it sit. Uncovered will be faster.

Ooey gooey. Normally the bar would look more uniform, but as I said I should've added more rice krispies. In any case, still tasty!

I would also recommend using quality chocolate chips. These were just the store brand, so the chocolate-butterscotch top doesn't taste quite as good as I remember. Let's be honest, the whole thing wasn't as good as I remember, but it's the first time I've made them in like... oh... six years? So there is room for myself to improve. I'm going to try freezing some to see if they aren't so gooey (they are to the point right now where they don't even keep their shape, so it's been difficult). I still have a bunch of rice krispies, so maybe I'll try some other rice krispie variations!

Cookie Bars

The infamous cookie bars! Anyone who knows me in the flesh has probably experienced these at some point! They are probably my most-requested treat, in fact. So much so that I got to the point where I hated making them. After a months-long break, though, they are back in full force!

Cookie Bars 

2 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 heaping cup or handful mini marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 375F. Combine the softened butter, vanilla, sugar and brown sugar. Once good and mixed, add each egg one at a time. Next up is the salt, baking soda and flour, which you can combine in a separate bowl first if you want, or you can just do it all in the mix, which is what I do. After that, I usually hand mix in the chips and marshmallows.

For this you'll need a 13 x 9 inch pan, lightly greased. I recommend glass pyrex, but you can use metal if that's all you've got. Bake in the oven for roughly 20-22 minutes.

You'll notice it is very close to the Nestle recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and that's because it's a simple variation with the butterscotch chips and the secret mini marshmallow ingredient that makes them all delicious and stuff. I don't have photos of this one in progress, because these photos are kind of old and done before I started this blog and got more into the photo-taking side of things.

This is what it should look like when you pull it out of the oven.

You'll notice it has "deflated" here after sitting out for a while, maybe 5 to 10 minutes. Now it's ready to be cut up and devoured!

So gooey and messy and, you guessed it, delicious. Also, as a note, they always turn out best when you use fresh mini marshmallows versus ones that have been around for a while, but they're good either way.

Peanut Butter Balls

And now it's time for the second of the four holiday cookies I promised you. These are probably the easiest of the bunch, as they are not even baked. These have been a holiday tradition in my family for as long as I can remember, and are almost always gobbled up first among the cookies. That may also be because they're nice and bite-sized! We have used various recipes over the years, some including graham crackers, but these seem to be the best.

Peanut Butter Balls

Ingredients

• For the balls:
• 1 cup smooth peanut butter
• 2 cups powered sugar
• 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
• For the topping:
• 2 cups (1 package) semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups (1 package, may be slightly less than 2 cups) butterscotch chips
• Optional: 1 Tablespoon parafin wax

Cooking Directions

1. Mix together the peanut butter, powdered sugar, and butter until well blended. You may have to get in there with your hands! After it's well blended, take small pieces and roll them into balls. Set out on parchment paper (or wax paper).
2. After those are done, mix together the chocolate chips and butterscotch chips in a microwavable bowl. Heat in 1 minute increments, stirring in between each minute. As they get more melted, just do 30 second increments so you don't overdo it. The parafin wax makes the chocolate runnier if you want to dip the balls completely (which I never have any luck with!). However, I usually just take a spoon and drip some chocolate on the top of each one. You also can test out how much of all of those chips you actually need, because I always tend to have leftover chocolate. You'll need to let these sit for a while, maybe an hour or two, to let the chocolate harden. But don't worry, it won't be too hard. They will be soft and delicious!

Peanut butter balls surrounded by some of the unglazed pumpkin cookies. Note these are not the amount of  balls you would get doing the above recipe. You'd have about twice as many, depending on what size you make them. I halved it this time around.

After dousing the balls in chocolate. What to do with any leftover chocolate? I used it to cover the tops of some of the pumpkin cookies I ran out of glaze for, and was told it was delicious. You can also use the extra chocolate to make chocolate-covered pretzels or peanut clusters.

Mmmmmmmmm......

These are super easy, though not for those who don't like to get their hands a little sticky!