Salted butterscotch oatmeal cookies

There is one cookie that reminds me of Dallas in the 1970s—a chewy oatmeal cookie laced with caramelized butterscotch chips. When I was young, a plate of these was seen at friends’ houses, bake sales, and pool parties. However, these butterscotch oatmeal cookies have been scarce in my life, of late. It was time to revisit this classic.

Now, to make butterscotch candy, one heats butter with brown sugar until it’s blended and thickened. The process is the same as making caramel candy, with the only difference being caramel uses granulated sugar instead.

The butter in the candy’s name makes sense since it’s a key ingredient. Not to mention, the flavor is lush and creamy like butter, too. The scotch portion of its name, however, is not a reference to alcohol, but instead to the cooking process. Scotch’s usage in the name is similar to the word scorch.

Because butterscotch candy is not heat stable, if you wanted to include it in, say, a cookie, it would liquify and meld into the dough as it baked. While still delicious, it’s not the same as having soft, gooey mounds spaced evenly throughout the pastry.

To solve this problem, in the late 1950s, chocolate company Nestle introduced the world to butterscotch morsels (or chips) for baking. The chips were dark tan in hue and their flavor was like burnt caramel. The ingredients included stabilizers that would allow the chips to maintain their form as they baked.

To show bakers how to use this new ingredient, the company printed its recipe for oatmeal butterscotch cookies (also known as oatmeal scotchies) on the package. The simple oatmeal cookie base was a hearty platform for the rich and creamy butterscotch morsels.  

Even though butterscotch chips are a recent addition to the American dessert cannon, they are still a classic. When I looked at the original recipe, I didn’t see much need for improvement on what had already been embraced.

At first, I tried to make my batch more sophisticated by browning the butter and toasting the oats before preparing the dough. However, these embellishments weren’t an upgrade on the simplicity of the original.

Instead, I increased the amount of brown sugar over granulated sugar, since it’s one of the cornerstones of classic butterscotch. I also added cinnamon for warmth and depth. And to finish, I sprinkled each cookie with flaked sea salt to balance the butterscotch’s sweetness.