Friday Favorite – Butterscotch Blondies

Happy Fourth of July!

We are enjoying the holiday in Mazanita at our beach house.  I love spending the Fourth there  – complete with fireworks over the ocean and a parade.  They throw candy from the floats except for the guy that owns the crabbing boats – he throws crab legs!

Some of our neighbors will be joining us at the beach for the holiday and we will be serving this week’s Friday Favorite for dessert.  So onto this week’s favorite….

I have learned that one of the easiest ways to teach your children a skill is to pay someone else to do it! 

I spent  years  teaching other woman’s daughters to sew – most of these women were seamstresses themselves.

There are some children that are just better taught by someone other than their mother!  My youngest daughter is one of them.   It only took me a few hair pulling, screaming matches to figure it out!  (That was me pulling out my own hair not hers and both of us raising our voices a bit!)

So several summers ago I enrolled Tessa in a summer baking class. Someone else needed to teach her to bake.

She loved the class and now is she is as good a baker as I am.

Each day, in class, they would make a new type of cookie and bring home the recipe and samples.  The samples were always in some type of cute packaging.  The teacher believed in one of my life lessons - “It’s all in the presentation!” 

Some were almost too cute to eat, although we never let that stop us.

The one cookie she made that summer that we have made over and over again is Butterscotch Blondies.  It is a bar cookie so it is a perfect cookie for the summer – quick and easy. 

Although we have enjoyed these cookies many, many times I have never actually made them.  Tessa is the official Butterscotch Blondie baker at our house – no one else is allowed!

So if you are looking for a non-chocolate bar cookie this recipe is perfect.  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do. 

Butterscotch Blondies

3/4 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 2/3 cups butterscotch chips

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease 13 x 9 pan.  Beat butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar in large bowl until creamy.  Add eggs; beat well.  Stir together flour, baking soda and salt;  gradually add to butter mixture, blending well.  Stir in butterscotch chips and nuts, if desired.  Spread into prepared pan.  Bake 30-35 minutes or until top is golden brown and center is set.  Do not over-bake.  Cool completely in pan on wire rack.  Cut into bars.