Historic Cooking: Remake of Butterscotch Brownies from 1973.

After the first batch of Butterscotch Brownies cooled, the texture was perfect but I decided that the flavor was so bland, and too sweet, that I really didn't want to eat any more, and I also didn't want to feed them to anyone else! I grew up making and eating the butterscotch brownie recipe in the _Betty Crocker Cooky Book_, which is a good one, so I decided to re-make the recipe with some changes to see if I could fix it.

I swapped out the 2/3 cup shortening for 1/2 cup salted butter and 1 tablespoon shortening, left out the 1/4 tsp. salt called for in the recipe, and used 2 tsp. vanilla instead of just 1. The re-worked recipe looked like this:

1/2 cup salted butter, softened
1 Tablespoon shortening, room temperature
2 cups dark brown sugar (scant)
2 eggs, well-beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cream
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup chopped nuts or chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine all ingredients in the above order. Grease an 8-inch square baking dish and scrape the batter in. Spread out to the corners and edges, and level as much as possible. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until the center is no longer liquid, but just barely set. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan, on a wire rack or a heat-resistant pad for 10 minutes. Loosen from the sides of the pan with a knife as needed, and cut into squares while still warm. Let cool completely before eating to ensure a chewy texture.

I also changed the heat setting on my oven; I don't have a full-size oven, just a toaster oven, and the oven settings really matter! For the first iteration of the recipe, the oven was set on "Bake" at 350 degrees F, and it took almost an hour (the recipe said it should bake for 30 to 35 minutes, but the middle was still liquid at that time) to bake the recipe until the middle of the brownies were cooked, which resulted in a chewy, fudgy texture. For the second try, I set the oven to "Toast" at 350 degrees F, and it baked for 40 minutes and resulted in a cakey texture. However, the flavor was much better the second time.

So, I would recommend the above recipe changes to anyone else who had a fail when they made this recipe! Take it out of the oven once the top and bottom have browned and the middle is set (I let it bake too long the second time) if you want a chewy texture. @psu_scl #thegreatrarebooksbakeoff #bakepennstate