These butterscotch brownies have been a favorite quick dessert recipe in our family for years! Easy-peasy because they can be whipped up using one bowl or saucepan and a wooden spoon! No dragging out a mixer or multiple bowls and beaters…it takes about 5 minutes to throw together the ingredients, and 25 minutes to bake them before you can have butterscotch-caramel flavored deliciousness on your taste buds. Butterscotch/buttery caramel, brown sugar, and nuts are wonderful flavors any time of year, but they seem to go best with the cooler fall and winter months. Pair them with hot cider, or hot chocolate, or hot buttered rum! Also, they make the house smell WONDERFUL while they are baking…I have a batch in the oven right now!

Whenever I make a tray of bar cookies, I like to cut off the edges so all the squares look uniform, and those crunchy edges are my favorite part - bonus for the cook, or any nearby family members that want to indulge before the guests arrive! I’m guessing that well-wrapped, these would store in the freezer beautifully, but we’ve never actually tried that because they keep just fine at room temperature for a day or two before they disappear!

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This recipe is from the first cookbook I ever owned: Betty Crocker’s Cookbook - New and Revised Edition. So now you can probably guess how OLD I am! It definitely falls into the category of “oldie but goodie” and was my go to cookbook for basic recipes and information for years. I have since amassed an embarrassing number of cookbooks and entertaining books, and now have digital files full of recipes acquired from various sources as well, but nothing beats some of the old tried and true originals like this one.

Butterscotch Brownie Recipe

makes 16 squares

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup shortening

• 1 cup packed brown sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (I usually use pecans, but walnuts are equally good)*

*nuts are really nice to compliment the sweetness of these squares, but are totally optional, so if you have nut allergies, this recipe still works without them! If I only have whole nuts on hand, I use THIS chopper to easily get uniform pieces…it contains the mess and makes it easy to transfer them to the bowl. Also, you get to take out any pent up aggression on them LOL!

Directions

Heat oven to 350’ F.

Heat shortening over low heat until melted, remove from heat. NOTE: I do this in the microwave in an 8 cup pyrex measuring cup or any microwave safe bowl, but you can use a saucepan and do it on the stovetop and mix the remaining ingredients right in that equally easily.

Mix in brown sugar, egg and vanilla.

Stir in the remaining ingredients.

Spread in greased 8” square pan.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Cut into 2” squares while warm

NOTE: I most often double this recipe and bake it in a 9” x 13” pan. I like to line my baking pans with parchment so I can lift the whole thing out before I cut it into squares…this saves scratching up the pans and makes things easier to cut. For more lazy gourmet cooking tips and shortcuts check out THIS post!

Enjoy!