Butterscotch Chocolate Chunk Cookies {ModBak}

February 13, 2012 at 7:42 am (Cookies, Modern Baker Challenge, Nick Malgieri, The Modern Baker)
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Come on. You know you want one of these babies.

This is the next recipe in the Cookies, Bars, & Biscotti section of the Modern Baker Challenge. I’ve bake these cookies twice already, in part because they’re so good. But also because I didn’t get any pictures the first time I made them. I went on a baking tear right before Thanksgiving, as we had lots of family coming into town. Unfortunately, I was so focused on baking that I didn’t get pictures of a lot of the stuff I made. I went ahead and posted some of the recipes without pictures, but these were such good cookies, I used the lack of photos as an excuse to make them again.

Although butterscotch is the first word in the name of these cookies, they don’t have any kind of butterscotch chips or other flavoring in them. The flavor comes from the combination of ingredients, chiefly the brown sugar. The dough also called for flour, baking soda, salt, butter, egg, and vanilla.

Oh, and chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.

Bittersweet and milk chocolate chunks get folded into the batter after it is mixed. Both times I made these, I was surprised by how much chocolate there is compared to the rest of the batter. The addition of the chocolate chunks almost doubles the volume of the dough. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Having just enough cookie dough to hold together the chocolate is just fine with me.

After mixing the dough, I dropped the cookies onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment foil. I put the cookies in the oven, realized I had forgotten to take a picture of the dough on the pan, and took a quick shot of the cookies in the oven.

I baked the cookies for about 15 minutes at 350°F, per the recipe, although I think they should have come out a few minutes earlier. They didn’t burn, but they were crispier than we like them.

While the first batch of cookies was baking, M asked if we could make cookie bars with the rest of the dough, so she pressed the remaining dough into an 8×8 pan. We baked the bars for about 25 minutes, until the edges were starting to brown, but the center still looked nice and doughy. Unlike the cookies, the bars were baked perfectly.

These are really delicious cookies, with a definite butterscotch flavor. And, of course, a rich, gooey, abundance of chocolate. Even though the cookies were a bit on the crispy side, they were great for dunking in milk. And the bars were soft, crumbly perfection.

This is a recipe I will keep in mind when I want chocolate chip cookies. They are head and shoulders above your typical Toll House cookies, and not any more difficult to make.

Renee was the official blogger for this recipe for the Modern Baker Challenge. Check out her blog to see what she thought of them. And if you’d like to join the Challenge, you can jump in any time.

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Butterscotch Scones {ModBak}

May 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm (Modern Baker Challenge, Quick Bread, Uncategorized)
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The 10th recipe (out of 15) in the Quick Bread section of The Modern Baker is Butterscotch Scones.  

  

I mixed up these scones while the Ginger Scones were baking. It took almost exactly as long to prepare these scones as it did to bake the ginger ones.  

First, I mixed the dry ingredients in the food processor.

Then, I added the butter and pulsed to mix.

Finally, I added the eggs and milk.

After the final mix in the food processor, I turned the dough out onto a Silpat, kneaded it four or five times, then divided the dough into three pieces. I patted each piece into a round, then divided the rounds into four wedges.  

  

I baked the scones for 15 minutes, until they were well-browned.  

  

As with the ginger scones, I ate these scones fresh from the oven. I wasn’t exactly disappointed with the taste, but compared to the ginger scones, they weren’t quite as flavorful. As I reread the recipe while preparing this post, I realized that I had used unsalted butter, which may explain why the scones seemed to be lacking in flavor.  

Even with unsalted butter, however, they were worth baking (and eating). I will make these scones again, with salted butter next time, to see how they taste when they are made correctly.

Updated 5/26/2010:  I baked these again tonight, this time using salted butter. I could tell even before I baked them that these would have a true butterscotch flavor. And they did not disappoint. If they were good before, this time they are excellent. Every bit as good as the ginger scones, which I absolutely loved.

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