Once upon a time, butterscotch was the darling of the American sweet tooth, casting its golden glow over puddings, pies, sauces, candies, cake frostings–you name it. Now there are people who’ve never had so much as a single, sorry instant butterscotch pudding.
This must be an oversight, America. Sure, maybe your doctor doesn’t want you to eat too much of it (your dentist either), but fresh butterscotch is overwhelmingly rich, mellow and seductive. Flavorwise, it’s the boss.
In my ill-informed youth, the only butterscotch I knew was a sauce or a pudding. When I first encountered butterscotch balls, I remember thinking, “Hey, cool, they’ve figured a way to make a butterscotch-flavored candy.”
I had it backward. Butterscotch candy came first. The butterscotch flavor develops naturally when you boil sugar syrup and butter together to a high enough temperature to make hard candy. It’s a combination of two flavors: browned sugar, otherwise known as caramel, and browned butter. The browning results from what chemists call the Maillard reaction, in which sugars and proteins react under heat to create roasted and browned flavors. This is why butterscotch has so often been combined with other roasted ingredients. Nuts, such as pecans, are typically roasted; rum and Bourbon contain caramel; maple syrup has undergone the Maillard reaction.
If anything is certain about butterscotch, it’s that this flavor was not created by design. It was a byproduct of a technique that made candymaking just about foolproof, even for people who weren’t skilled confectioners. The problem in candymaking is that once syrup has been heated higher than about 250 degrees, its natural inclination is to seize as it cools, turning into rock-hard crystals rather than brittle, glassy candy. In the 17th Century, French candymakers had discovered that fat has the handy property of getting in the way of crystallization.
Acid ingredients accomplish much the same thing by breaking some of the sucrose molecules into glucose and fructose, thereby cluttering up the solution for would-be crystals. (In the 18th Century, adding an acid such as cream of tartar to sugar syrup was called “greasing” it.) This is one reason for all of the sweet-sour hard candies, such as lemon drops and Life Savers. It also may explain why a lot of old-time butterscotch recipes call for a little vinegar or lemon juice; a bit of lemon peel flavor came to be traditional in English butterscotch candies.
Molasses retards crystallization, too, by altering the ratio of glucose to fructose. Conveniently for butterscotch-makers, molasses contains caramel and even some roasted Maillard-reaction flavors of its own, because it’s the byproduct of the repeated boiling by which sugar is refined. In effect, it’s a very dark caramel with a distinct burnt edge and a bit of sharpness. Because molasses is so strongly flavored, butterscotch recipes rarely use it straight, only in the diluted form of brown sugar, which is refined sugar crystals thinly coated with molasses.
So a really cautious, or insecure, candymaker might throw all these things into the mix: butter, an acid ingredient and molasses. As it happens, until highly refined sugar became inexpensive in the middle of the 19th Century, most sugar — certainly the sort of sugar ordinary people had access to — was more or less brown, so the molasses issue pretty much took care of itself.
Though the term “butterscotch” didn’t appear until 1885, the product was probably being made in the early 18th Century, maybe even before that. In “Sugar-Plums and Sherbet: The Prehistory of Sweets,” Laura Mason draws attention to a brand of hard butterscotch called Everton toffee, which dates to 1753.
The word “butterscotch” has nothing to do with Scotland, by the way. “To scotch” means to cut or score something; when butterscotch candy was poured out to cool, it was “scotched” to make it easier to break into pieces later.
In the late 19th Century, Americans started making butterscotch-flavored sauce, one of the mainstays of the old-time soda fountain, and then followed up with a profusion of butterscotch pastries and other sweets. Most of them have faded, but an underground of passionate butterscotch lovers survives.
For proof, there’s Diana Dalsass’ “The Butterscotch Lover’s Cookbook” (Buttercup Press, $17.95), which gives a lot of luscious-sounding recipes, including an apple sour cream pie with a butterscotch crust. Nearly all are based on crushing up butterscotch candies, though, rather than making butterscotch from scratch. The book includes a passionately researched list of sources for buying them.
Why people don’t make butterscotch sauce or pudding may be understandable, but such recipes deliver a splashy effect with relatively little risk of failure.
Butterscotch is forgiving.
Just how forgiving is plain from the wildly differing proportions of ingredients in butterscotch sauce recipes. With fudge or fondant, the proportions always have to be about the same, but the ratio of sugar to butter in butterscotch recipes can range from 4:3 to 16:1, and the ratio of sugar to cream from 8:9 to 4:1.
In short, you could practically forget about using any recipe at all and just boil a bunch of brown sugar with some butter for a while, add cream and then boil until it was as thick as you liked.
Don’t worry. It would be some kind of butterscotch sauce.
Butterscotch rules, but it’s not exactly rocket science.
The Butterscotch Lover’s Cookbook
By Diana Dalsass
Buttercup Press, $17.95
Recipes for butterscotch-flavored treats fill this cookbook. There’s also an ample list of retail sources for butterscotch candy.
Now, what about molasses?
Molasses isn’t just caramelized sugar and browned proteins. “There are a lot of minerals, mostly calcium and iron,” says food scientist and author Harold McGee. “They don’t participate in any aromatic compounds themselves, but they influence the direction of reactions and give a distinctive spectrum of flavors. And besides sucrose, there are larger sugars, three- and four-unit sugars, which don’t have much sweetness but react with each other and the smaller sugars, giving flavorful compounds.”
Finally, there are amino acids from protein breakdown, which give molasses its sharpness.
Because of the acids, molasses or even brown sugar will make milk curdle if you boil it with either of them. For this reason, many recipes for butterscotch sauce, and particularly for butterscotch pudding, begin by cooking the brown sugar with butter before adding cream or milk — especially milk.
“This doesn’t actually prevent coagulation,” McGee says, “but it makes it less noticeable. The fat will disperse the coagulating milk proteins so they don’t link up to make larger clots.”
One absolute way to prevent curdling in a butterscotch pudding would be to use granulated sugar instead of brown sugar and then whisk in a little molasses — starting with a quarter of a teaspoon per cup of sugar and adding more to taste — at the very end, when it’s thickened. You can also use granulated sugar and a little molasses in place of brown sugar if you don’t have brown sugar on hand.
–Charles Perry
Butterscotch pudding
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Yield: 8 servings
This recipe is based on one used at Wolfgang Puck’s defunct Los Angeles restaurant, Eureka. Adding coffee gives it a flavor like coffee candy. Adding maple syrup will lend a powerful perfume.
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1 3/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
7 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups milk
4 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup brewed espresso or strong coffee, or 1/3 cup maple syrup, optional
1. Combine the butter and the brown sugar in a heavy medium saucepan over low heat. Simmer, stirring, 5 minutes. Add the cream; stir until smooth.
2. Combine the cornstarch and salt in a bowl. Stir in the milk until the cornstarch dissolves. Add the cornstarch mixture to the saucepan; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent burning, until the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes.
3. Whisk 1 cup of the mixture into the egg yolks; return to the saucepan. Add the vanilla and espresso or maple syrup. Reduce the heat to low; cook, stirring, 1 minute. Strain; pour into 8 custard cups. Serve warm or cold.
Nutrition information per serving:
535 calories, 53% calories from fat, 32 g fat, 19 g saturated fat, 205 mg cholesterol, 265 mg sodium, 58 g carbohydrate, 5 g protein, 0 g fiber
Caramel butterscotch sauce
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Yield: 2 cups
Here’s a butterscotch sauce flavored with freshly made caramel instead of molasses, so it emphasizes the flavor of the lightly browned butter. It has a tendency to separate and granulate when cold, so it should be warmed up and stirred well before using. Adapted from “Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making,” by James Peterson.
1 pound (2 cups) sugar
2 cups water
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1. Place the sugar in a heavy medium saucepan over medium heat; cook, stirring, until it dissolves and develops a deep reddish-brown color, about 10 minutes. Carefully pour in 1 cup of the water, standing back to avoid steam and splatter. Cook 1 minute. Add the remaining 1 cup water; boil, stirring occasionally, until any hardened caramel has melted, about 7 minutes.
2. Add the butter pieces; boil until the mixture reaches 245 degrees on a candy thermometer (or until it has a gummy consistency when a spoon is dipped into the mixture and then into cold water), about 25 minutes. Stir in the cream and vanilla; simmer until it flows smoothly off the spoon, about 5 minutes. Serve warm or cool and refrigerate.
Nutrition information per 1/4 cup:
375 calories, 40% calories from fat, 17 g fat, 11 g saturated fat,
50 mg cholesterol, 125 mg sodium, 57 g carbohydrate, 0.4 g protein, 0 g fiber
Rum butterscotch sauce
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 35 minutes
Yield: 21/2 cups
This really luscious, mouth-filling sauce from “Ladies’ Home Journal Dessert Cookbook” keeps well in the refrigerator but should be taken out an hour before use, or briefly heated in the microwave. Use it on ice cream or drizzled over cakes.
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups light corn syrup
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons light rum
1. Place sugar, corn syrup and butter in a medium heavy saucepan; heat to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil until it reaches 245 degrees on a candy thermometer, about 20 minutes.
2. Stir in the cream; heat to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Cook, until thickened, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla and rum. Serve warm or cool and refrigerate.
Nutrition information per 1/4 cup:
495 calories, 39% calories from fat, 23 g fat, 14 g saturated fat,
70 mg cholesterol, 190 mg sodium, 78 g carbohydrate, 0.7 g protein, 0 g fiber
Sour cream apple pie with butterscotch crust
Preparation time: 1 hour
Chilling/cooling time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Yield: 8 servings
Adapted from “The Butterscotch Lover’s Cookbook,” by Diana Dalsass.
Butterscotch pastry crust:
22 pieces butterscotch hard candy
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter
3 tablespoons ice water or more
Filling:
1 cup sour cream
1/3 cup dark or light brown sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
5 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored
Streusel topping:
1/2 cup each: flour, dark or light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Homemade or bottled butterscotch sauce, optional
1. For the crust, place candy in a food processor bowl; process until finely ground (you should have about 1/3 cup). Transfer to large mixing bowl. Add flour and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or two knives until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Gradually stir in the water just until the dough holds together, adding more water if necessary. Wrap in plastic wrap; chill the dough 30 minutes.
2. For the filling, stir together the sour cream, brown sugar, flour, vanilla and cinnamon in large bowl. Thinly slice each apple into the bowl; toss occasionally to coat with the filling. Set aside.
3. For the topping, stir together the flour, brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add the butter; rub it in with fingertips until mixture is crumbly. Stir in the pecans.
4. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Roll out the crust on a lightly floured surface to a round about 13 inches in diameter. Fit into a 9-inch deep-dish pie pan; fold under overhanging crust. Crimp the edges. Fill with the apple mixture, pressing down lightly to make an even layer. Sprinkle topping evenly over apples.
5. Place a baking sheet on lower oven rack to catch drips. Bake pie 15 minutes; reduce heat to 325 degrees. Bake until bubbly and browned, about 50 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool, at least 30 minutes. Cut into wedges. Serve with butterscotch sauce lightly drizzled over top of each piece, if desired.
Nutrition information per serving:
551 calories, 46% of calories from fat, 29 g fat, 13 g saturated fat, 59 mg cholesterol, 70 g carbohydrates, 5 g protein, 356 mg sodium, 3 g fiber
