Peanut Butter Brownies with Butterscotch Ganache

In case you haven't noticed, I'm on quite a butterscotch kick. Seriously, that stuff tastes fantastic. So when I saw Lisa share this receipe, I knew I had to make it.

And what better reason than it's Thursday?

Peanut Butter Blondies with Butterscotch Ganache



Blondies:
3/4 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup salted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Ganache:
1 cup butterscotch chips
3 tablespoons cream

Note: These ingredients will get you a 9x13's pan worth of blondies. Want a jelly roll pan's worth? Double the recipe.

Step 1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a 9-inch x 13-inch pan with parchment, creasing the corners so that they lie flat. Set aside.

Oh, this is totally going to be easy.

Step 2. In a large bowl, beat the peanut butter and butter until light and fluffy.



Goopy! I used smooth peanut butter. Usually I will go with crunchy peanut butter, but I don't think it would have been good with this recipe.

Add the sugars and whip until combined. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.



Brown sugar clumps. If you have any really solid pieces, break them up with a fork/spoon otherwise your mixer will end up throwing brown sugar clumps all over the bowl (or you).



Before adding the dry mix, it will be really good looking, but not thick.



Some people might even describe it as really wet.



Step 3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and baking soda.

Step 4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until combined. The batter will be fairly thick.



She's right, the batter will get to be very thick. You can't beat it too much, so make it a little thicker than you think you'd probably need to. Beat at low speed for a while and then speed it up to a medium speed to make sure it's effectively mixed.

One thing to note: if you don't have a dishwasher, you'll want to wash this stuff very quickly after we're done. Remember, we're working with peanut butter, so it will get crusty really quickly if you don't at least let it soak.

Step 4.5. Lick the beater.



Step 5. Pour/spread the batter into the prepared pan and smooth with a spatula.



Step 6. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the edges begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and the centre is set but not firm. Transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

I didn't take a picture of this, but there's no real way to get it evenly done, especially if you make a jelly roll pan's worth. So, give in to the fact that your sides will be a little crispy, but better to have the middle done and the side crispy than the side good and the middle too gooey.



But then it comes out and looks awesome!

Step 7. When the blondie is cool, prepare the butterscotch ganache. In the top of a double boiler over low-medium heat, stir the butterscotch chips just until melted. Remove from heat, stir until smooth and immediately pour over the cooled blondie.



I didn't take a picture of the making of the ganache, but it's pretty easy. Don't have a double boiler? Simply put one saucepan in another saucepan (smaller into bigger) filled with boiling water. In the top saucepan, put your ingredients (cream and butterscotch chips in this case). Keep mixing but doing it this way will keep it from burning the bottom of the saucepan.

Step 8. Refrigerate until set. Cut into squares. Or diamonds. Hell, I don't care.



It makes a lot when you double the recipe, but if you have friends and people who like sweets, these will go quickly.



One other note: Your pieces on the end will have these little weird shelves where they cooked over the side of the pan. If these really bother you, cut them off, but they taste good to me.

Verdict: Delicious! If I had it to do over again, I'd probably make a little extra ganache and cover it more thoroughly, but a really easy, quick recipe that many small children at birthday parties would love.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

I like to make things for people at my office, mostly because it means I'm not eating everything I make and because they seem to like it. But, B-Mac can't eat peanut butter (or any nut-based dessert) where a lot of folks seem to like it so, since I really don't want to kill her and keep her working on things that make my life easier, I sometimes look for non-nut recipes to make sure she can partake.

So I went out looking for a recipe that had no nuts and would incorporate things I already had in my kitchen, namely Butterscotch chips as I needed a good excuse to use them up.

Oh, and I'm on a super-strong Butterscotch kick. Seriously, this stuff is the bomb.



Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

Ingredients
* 3/4 cup butter, softened
* 3/4 cup white sugar
* 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3 cups rolled oats
* 1 2/3 cups butterscotch chips

Directions


1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

I can handle this. Totally.

2. In a large bowl beat the butter or margarine, white sugar and brown sugar together.



Put everything in the bowl and start mixing.



At first the sugar will clump, keep working it 'til it looks much smoother.



3. Add the eggs and vanilla, beating well.



You should get a very smooth mixture once you're done with this.

4. Stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.



First things first: I made sure to add a full tablespoon of cinammon because, like vanilla, it is an awesome spice and should be incorporated in almost-excess at just about every opportunity.

5. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until blended.

When you start mixing in the flour, do it a little bit at a time. Dump a little of the flour in, mix it, and then add more. You don't want things to get too solidified while you're still adding mix, so make it a smooth transition. Doing it in a smooth fashion means it'll be better mixed because you won't be trying to do it all at once and have so much flour in the way, but better to get it in there and mixing before you've got dough with flour leftover.



When you're done, it should look like this.

6. Stir in the oats and the butterscotch chips.



Add in the rest of the stuff and start mixing. You'll get a very lumpy mixture, which is exactly what you're looking for. The recipe called for some specific amount of chips, but figure it to be 1 bag of butterscotch chips.

7.5. Lick the beater



7. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet.



If you don't have a friend like J-Dog who will get you a super-pimping cookie scooper, you firstly should get one (having people like that are über-useful and good to talk things over with) and you can secondly use a tablespoon as that will get basically the same result.

Two things to keep in mind: the recipe says that it will make 48 cookies, and though I didn't think that was at all possible considering the amount of dough the recipe generated, you could probably get that many if you made them really small. That said, I didn't do that -- mine we're fairly decent sized which left me with 36 cookies.



And secondly, don't get cocky and try and nonchalantly put the last tray of cookies in the oven, as you will most likely hit the rack and spill your cookies. Important to note: if you have a gas oven, like I do, you will want to pick up the cookies that spilled using a few paper towels and AN OVEN MITT otherwise you will absolutely burn the crap out of your hand. That said, you will also want to clean it up quickly or it will start burning and set off your fire alarm, pissing off your neighbors something fierce.

8. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until the edges begin to brown.

Conclusion: These are awesome. Absolutely delicious. Hardest part? Not eating them all.