Celebrate These Non-Chocolate Butterscotch Brownies aka Blondies by Baking Your Own Batch

Before chocolate and fudge cake mixed, creating brownies, blondies were already present and being baked in abundance. Yes, butterscotch brownies are nothing but blondies or Brookies. Just like brownies, these can be enjoyed with ice cream – vanilla to make the most of their subtle butterscotch flavour. If these seem inadequate and plain to you the recipe below might change your mind, for it has a delicious topping. But, if you don’t want too sweet blondies, skip that step. These non-cocoa brownies also do well cut up into small pieces for trifles, brownie ice cream recipes, and parfaits. You could gift them to someone or even contribute towards some kind of upcoming school or community event 

Did You Know May 9 is National Butterscotch Brownie Day?

Just like the other dessert days, the creator of National Butterscotch Brownie Day remains unknown, but they sure deserve praise for dedicating a day to these rich dessert bars that are fudgy and sweet and can melt away all your worries.

Butterscotch brownies, also called blondies or blond brownies, differ from traditional chocolate brownies in both colour and taste. Instead of cocoa, blondies get their distinctive vanilla caramel flavour profile from brown sugar and butterscotch chips. Interestingly, blondies predate the first chocolate brownie recipe published in 1905 - versions of the vanilla-based treats can be traced back to the late 1800s.

Just like any other basic cake, blondies have standard baking ingredients like flour, butter, eggs, and baking powder, but of course, like brownie, it is dense and fudgy. With the chocolate lacking to flavour blondies, it derives its colour and flavour from brown sugar, vanilla, and butterscotch chips blended into the batter. Some recipes take it up a notch by adding chocolate chips or nuts. Despite the name, actual Scotch is not an ingredient, it's an alcohol-free recipe and is named after the flavour that also has ice creams and other desserts named after it.

The story of butterscotch itself begins in Doncaster, Yorkshire, where a confectioner named Samuel Parkinson started selling the crunchy butter-sugar candies in the early 1800s. Parkinson's treats proved so popular that his butterscotch tins earned the royal seal of approval. Traditionally, butterscotch is made from butter and brown sugar, with some recipes adding cream, vanilla, or salt.

Early butterscotch candy was cooked to the soft crack stage versus hard crack-like toffee. Cooks first used treacle, the viscous syrup left over from sugar refining, instead of or combined with sugar. Today, versatile butterscotch can be a topping, pudding, flavour chips for cookies and blondies, or simply eaten as hard candy.

Butterscotch Brownie

Ingredients

• 60 gm butter (melted)
• 200 gm brown sugar
• 1 egg
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 100 gm all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt

Caramel topping

• 115 gm butter
• 100 gm packed dark brown sugar
• 30 ml cream
• 30 ml milk
• 240 gm sifted powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Grease an 8x8-inch pan and then heat the oven to 180°C. 
2. Grab an electric handheld mixer, cream butter, sugar, egg and vanilla. Stiff peaks will form. 
3. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Now, slide this dry mixture into the creamy one and mix again. 
4. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan.
5. Once brownies are nearly done baking, melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until browned.
6. Whisk in the brown sugar and continue cooking, stirring constantly. Once the sugar has fully dissolved, remove from heat and slowly whisk in the cream. Allow to cool slightly.
7. Once cooled a bit, gradually whisk in the powdered sugar until thick. Mix in vanilla and salt.
8. Pour or use a blunt knife to spread icing evenly over cooled brownies in the pan. 
9. Let it set completely at room temp or refrigerate to speed up the process.

Pro tip: Butterscotch desserts and even ice creams have crackly caramel balls and if you really love that element in your butterscotch-flavoured confections, then consider pressing them onto the semi-cool brownie’s surface before layering the topping. You can also add them to the batter to have bursts of butterscotch goodness once your blondies are baked. You can purchase them on any e-commerce site or in your local bakery. Rice krispies will also suffice.