Try This Super Delicious Amish Golden Butterscotch Brownies Recipe Today!

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Homemade butterscotch is a staple in the repertoire of most Amish bakers. With ingredients that consist of such baking basics, butterscotch is an an easy and irresistible sweet.  Butterscotch can be used to flavor brownies, cakes, puddings and candies. My brother and I used to make a habit of going to the local malt shop and ordering butterscotch milkshakes. Man, those were amazing!

Jump to:

• 📜 Butterscotch Basics
• 📖 Some Background on The Amish and Butterscotch
• 🥄 More Amish Desperation Dessert Recipes
• 📋 Step-by-Step Butterscotch Brownies
• 🖨️ Full Recipe

📜 Butterscotch Basics

Anyone can make homemade butterscotch which really is just a cooked brown sugar and butter.

But what if you don't have brown sugar? Well, for this recipe, I confess, I had brown sugar but I just didn't feel like this recipe made enough brownies for the gathering I was going to, but I realized I was out of brown sugar! I used the last of it on the first batch of batter. But a quick search online showed that, yes, you can make butterscotch just the same with white sugar. You'll see some pictures below. You don't get the same rich color as brown sugar but the flavor is essentially the same. I had a dark batter with brown sugar, and a lighter batter with white sugar and I just blended the two. Came up with a beautiful golden butterscotch.

 Just be careful when cooking it on the stove-top to keep stirring so it doesn't scorch, while nothing tastes better than butterscotch, few things smell worse than scorched 'scotch.

📖 Some Background on The Amish and Butterscotch

Amish cooks specialize in "desperation desserts." These desserts satisfy the sweet tooth without busting the budget. This culinary trait is borne of necessity. The Amish were clobbered by the Great Depression in the 1930s, but even before then and after then, they were a frugal, minimalist culture. You simply won't find most Amish bakers making fancy ganaches or flambes. A homemade butterscotch simply using sugar and butter is a much more in line with Amish culinary values.

Butterscotch brownies would fit in well with the tradition of desperation desserts. because it is very basic.

🥄 More Amish Desperation Dessert Recipes

These are dessert type recipes that require minimal ingredients, but still deliver a sweet taste. Coffee soup is enjoyed as a breakfast, but can also be a sweet. As you an see many of the desperation desserts are pies. It's just easy to throw a bunch of stuff into a crust and enjoy!

Chocolate Chip-Cinnamon Desperation Pie

Vinegar Pie

Amish Coffee Soup

Amish Bread Pie

📋 Step-by-Step Butterscotch Brownies

I thought about tossing some chocolate chips in these, but I didn't. I'm not sure how I feel about combining chocolate and butterscotch.

This is an exciting photo of me melting butter. Well you don't see me, but here's the melting butter!

This is the sugar and butter mixture, which kind of has a peanut butter consistency, although slightly grainier.

This is what I call the makings of "white butterscotch", same process, just using white sugar. It really is the same, it just doesn't give you the color depth of brown sugar butterscotch.

This is what the mixture looks like after you add beaten egg (which I just did in a separate bowl) and vanilla, followed by flour, salt, and baking powder. If there are any other flavorings that you think would pair well with butterscotch you could add them here. Cinnamon, maybe? I don't know, I think it's great just like this.

Oh, and the recipe does call for optional nuts. SIGH. Some people like to stick nuts into everything. Feel free on this. They do add some crunch, which is nice, but so many people have nut allergies that if I am going to take this to a gathering, I'll leave the nuts out. I don't think they are necessary.

Spoon the batter into a 9 X 9 square pan. But that isn't much brownie. So I doubled the recipe and used a 9 X 13 pan and that worked well.

I sprinkled a dusting of powdered sugar over them, but that's really more for aesthetics than anything else. I didn't think the powdered sugar added a lot from a taste perspective.

I transferred them to a disposable pan to take to the party. It's not the prettiest, but nothing worse than having a brownie-caked baking pan to take home and scrub, just put them in something disposable and throw away when the brownies are gone. And these brownies were a hit so I had an empty pan at the end!

🖨️ Full Recipe