Butterscotch Chip Cookies

Some nights after the boys are in bed I want nothing more than to veg on the couch and watch some trainwreck reality tv. Other nights I might have a little more brain power but not much more oomph and you'll see me knitting and watching whatever PBS shows are stacked up in our DVR. (Hello, Shakespeare Uncovered. I'm obsessed.) But there are other nights where I just need to get in the kitchen. Cooking, and especially baking, are a total stress relief for me. Even when I'm making a difficult recipe and don't look like I'm enjoying it at all, I am. It's the intellectual challenge of trying something new. If it's a success, I like to tinker with it to see what it would taste like if I try this method or a slight ingredient change. If it's a complete failure, I want to figure out what went wrong and what I can fix (after a bit of swearing and grumping, let's be honest).

I stumbled on the original recipe for these cookies on Pinterest ages ago. It's one of those small batch recipes that made only 2 chocolate chip cookies. I was in a mood to bake, craving something sweet and just needing 10 or 15 minutes of zen in kitchen. This recipe only required one bowl, and I had everything to make them with except chocolate chips. After digging through my chocolate stash I found a bag of butterscotch chips languishing on the bottom. I know there was a recipe I bought them for, but it never got made, so I though, why not? I decreased the amount of chips because the butterscotch is so much richer than a simple chocolate. The result stopped us cold. The husband and I devoured these in approximately 15 seconds. They are just the perfect mix of gooey middle and melting butterscotch. Luckily the original recipe made 4 cookies instead of the expected 2. A few weeks later we tried it with chocolate chips. Excellent, but just not the same. I tweaked the recipe slightly, and expanded it make around a dozen. This is the kind of cookie you can heat up in the microwave a few days later and have it taste like it just came out of the oven.
I made the dozen to take to a friend this afternoon, but somehow she only got 10.

Butterscotch Chip Cookies

adapted from No. 2 Pencil

6 Tbsp butter, softened

6 Tbsp packed brown sugar

3 Tbsp granulated sugar

1/2 tsp salt

3 egg yolks

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 c flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

4 Tbsp butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350. 

Put softened butter into medium bowl and then add sugars, salt and vanilla. Stir until combined and then mix in egg yolks. Add baking soda and flour and combine. Finally, fold in the butterscotch chips, taking care that they are evenly distributed throughout the batter.

Drop by the teaspoonful onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The cookies will spread, so leave adequate space in between. 

Bake for 10 minutes. 

When you take the baking sheet out of the oven, bang it down on the counter top. This flattens the cookies, and gives them that sunken, wrinkled look.