Chocolate Butterscotch Cookies * how to make butterscotch

Chocolate Butterscotch Cookies

saltine crackers

1 c butter, unsalted

1 c light brown sugar

1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips (12 oz, or about 2 cups)

1 c M&M candies (optional)

1 c chopped nuts (optional)

sprinkles (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil and grease. Place crackers all over it in a single layer, touching. In a medium saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar over medium heat, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil and stir constantly while boiling for about four minutes. Pour evenly over the crackers. Bake 7 minutes.

Remove from oven and pour chocolate chips evenly over the pan. Allow them to sit for a minute or two to melt, then spread with a knife. Sprinkle with M&M candies, chopped nuts, decorative sprinkles, etc., as desired.

Allow to cool for several hours or until the chocolate hardens, then break apart and serve.

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make chocolate butterscotch cookies. I don’t actually know what else to call them. The butterscotch does not taste like butterscotch flavoring, fortunately. It’s much, much better. [It may actually be toffee by the time it gets out of the oven, now that I think about it. Toffee is just butterscotch that’s been cooked longer.]

This is the recipe you make when you remember late at night that you promised to bring cookies for the office meeting the next day. You don’t have time to do anything fancy or run to the grocery store, but you want something everyone will like.

This recipe only really needs four ingredients: saltine crackers, butter, brown sugar, and chocolate chips. That’s it. You can put these together in half an hour, literally. The only drawback is that they need to cool completely before you can break them apart, which takes at least two hours. But they’re just fine sitting out overnight while they cool and while you sleep, and in the morning you just grab them and go.

For this recipe, you need a baking sheet and a pot. That’s it. No mixing bowls to wash. You don’t even really need to measure out anything but the brown sugar.

First, line your largest baking sheet with tinfoil and grease the foil. This is one time when it really is easiest to use the spray stuff, but you can also grease it with just a bit of vegetable oil, shortening, or butter. As soon as you’ve done that, get the saltine crackers out. Yes, just ordinary saltines that you eat with soup or chili.

You’re going to need at least one sleeve of crackers, depending on the size of your baking sheet. Mine fits 48 crackers. Place them on the tinfoil in a single layer so that they’re all touching on all sides. If you have the kind of crackers that are joined together in pairs, you can either keep them in pairs or snap them apart, it doesn’t really matter. Once you have the baking sheet covered, set it aside, but make sure it’s somewhere you can get to easily.

Next, turn the oven on to preheat. Then put two sticks of butter and a cup of light brown sugar into a pot. The recipe says saucepan, but that’s basically just a fancy word for a pot. Remember to pack the brown sugar firmly into the measuring cup. You don’t need to soften the butter before using it, because you’re about to boil the heck out of it with the brown sugar to make butterscotch.

Butterscotch is related to caramel and toffee, but it’s richer than caramel and softer than toffee. But don’t be nervous—you don’t need a candy thermometer or anything. Just throw the butter and sugar into the pot together and turn the heat on to about medium, or maybe a little higher. Unsalted butter is best but if you only have salted butter, that’s fine too.

Heat the butter and