Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Butterscotch drizzle: stretching what you have

Today I made a double batch of Doreen Perry's oatmeal cookies, using crushed cornflakes and butterscotch chips as the extras.  I purposely didn't use the whole bag of butterscotch chips, because I wanted to use them somehow as topping to fancy up the cookies.  But there weren't a lot of chips left, maybe a cupful, and the double recipe made five panfuls of cookies.

So I thought about that while the first two pans baked.

And this is what I came up with:  I mixed about two-thirds of a cup of icing sugar with a bit of milk, the same way I do when I'm making glaze for pumpkin doughnuts.  I melted the butterscotch chips in the microwave and mixed them into the glaze. It was too thick to drizzle, so I added just a bit more milk and then put the whole thing back in the microwave for half a minute, reasoning that sauces and syrups get thinner when they're heated.  (You know the old trick of warming up honey or pancake syrup that has crystallized in the jar?  It also works with jam, if you want it thinner to pour on pancakes or spread over a cake.)

Expecting a disaster at this point?  No, it actually worked.  There was enough butterscotch-flavoured glaze to give each cookie a good drizzle. 

And now I just have to go figure out what we're having for supper.

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