As featured on HUFFPOST LIVING CANADA
When I was a very little girl, my parents worked late hours, and we often had a family member come over to babysit. I always loved it when my grandaunt Veronica came over, because she was known for her sweet tooth. Along with a few bars of chocolate [for a while, I thought her purse housed a mini chocolate factory], she’d always bring something she’d baked for us or a boxed mix she wanted to whip up while my parents were away.
A sweet tooth, yes, and a bit of a scaredy cat, too…One night, after my brother and I had been sent to bed, it started raining hard and fast. My big brother fell right asleep. But I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, because I loved and still love a good thunderstorm! I put on my little robe and slippers and crept to the window to have a better view. Moments later, I heard a loud thunderclap. Down the street, a tree limb dropped onto the rooftop of a camper van. A jay cawed. And, then, I caught the last flashes of my next-door neighbour’s television set before the street went black.
After a moment of silence, I could hear my nervous aunt wondering, “Oh, dear! Oh dear!” And, not much later, I saw Aunt Von peeking around the corner and into my room, holding up a glow-in-the-dark rubber coin purse as her sole surce of light.
“Dolly, dolly!” [She called her favourite little girls, Dolly.] “Are you up?”
Soon enough, I was sitting at the kitchen table with Aunt Von, a tall candle burning, the kettle on the gas stove adding extra light and warmth, and a tin of soft Butterscotch Pecan cookies open and practically glowing in front of us. She had unwrapped a few bars of chocolate, too, and the foil wrappers sent slants of light across the room. After the tea was poured and mixed with cream and sugar, Von and I sat together for hours, carefully breaking our soft, thin cookies into quarters and piling a small chunk of chocolate on top of each section for an extra special treat.
When the folks at HuffPost Canada Parents and Goldfish® asked some of their Parent Contributors to re-create their favourite childhood snacks with their kids, my mind instantly went back to those cookies, the accompanying chocolate and tea, and that terrific, stormy night! Since Aunt Von isn’t with us anymore to share either her cookie recipe or her source for those amazing chocolates, I tried working with the kids from memory to create a Pecan Butterscotch Cookie that was as large, thin, and chewy as Aunt Von’s. This time, though, and to celebrate the storm, Bea had the brilliant idea of incorporating the chocolate bars right into the cookie!
Here’s a close-up of our finished product:
Here’s how we got there:
And here’s the absolute glee!
These cookies are [almost] as amazing as my dear Aunt Von’s! The kids are already asking to make a second batch!
Wanna try some?
Here’s our Lunchbox Season recipe:
Butterscotch Pecan Cookies with Chocolate Chunks
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1 tbs molasses
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 1/2 cup butterscotch chips
- 1 cup pecan halves slightly chopped
- 1 1/4 cup chocolate chunks or broken chocolate bar pieces
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- In a bowl, mix the flour, soda, and salt, and set aside.
- In a mixer or by hand, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the molasses, vanilla, and eggs, and stir well.
- Add the flour mixture, and stir until just combined.
- Add the chips, nuts, and chunks, and stir until just combined.
- If the dough is soft, refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Drop dough by the large tablespoonful onto parchment-lined cookie sheets.
- Bake 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are just barely beginning to brown at the edges.
- Cool the cookies for 1-2 minutes on the hot pans.
- Then, transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely.
- Enjoy!
How about those happy, happy kids!!!
What a great day of baking it was! Many thanks to Goldfish® for asking us to share our story!
[The kids are absolutely wild about your Flavour Blasted® Screamin’ Salt and Vinegar Goldfish® and Xtra Cheddar Goldfish®, by the way!]
You can check out the Goldfish® facebook page at www.facebook.com/GoldfishCA.
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