Butterscotch Frosted Cookies

A cakey buttery cookie with a browned butter frosting. Simply delicious.

Yield: about 4-5 dozen

Source: The Cooking Cache, link below

I found this recipe at Cooking Cache, and decided it looked good enough to try. It was an unusual one, for me; not my favorite cookie, but still pretty yummy.

The recipe:

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup sour cream (8 oz.)

2 1/2 cups flour

2/3 cup chopped nuts

Start by creaming the shortening and brown sugar together, and then add the eggs and vanilla. Then add in the dry ingredients alternately with the sour cream. Add the nuts last. As usual, I left the nuts out. It always makes me a little sad to do this.

The dough will be quite soft, not the sort of thing you can roll into neat little balls. Drop it by teaspoonfuls onto your cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes. I made them kind of smallish, so 10 minutes was perfect.

They come out soft and cakey, very similar to the Chocolate Frosted cookies. The raw dough is not good, not good at all. Even the plain cookie is pretty, well... plain. So, the frosting is the key to this recipe. It is not the easiest frosting I have ever made, but it's not bad.

FROSTING:

1/2 cup butter (no substitutes)

3 1/2 - 4 cups powdered sugar

4-5 T boiling water

1 tsp. vanilla

Start by melting the butter in a saucepan over medium heat, and continue cooking until the butter is brown, but not scorched. Remove it from the heat, and stir in the other ingredients. Mine turned out pretty thin, so I put a little more powdered sugar in. And, for the sake of honesty, I will tell you that I did not actually boil the water. I just used very hot tap water. Maybe that's the lazy in me, but I think it turned out fine.

The key here is to frost the cookies as soon as you make the frosting. This frosting hardens as it sits, so time is of the essence, here. Make sure your cookies are cooled and ready to frost before you start melting the butter. Once the frosting is made, frost quickly. My frosting was starting to harden before I was quite done. If this happens, you can add a little more water and stir it up again, and that should give you a few more minutes to finish up. You can garnish them with some finely chopped nuts, if you want. Just add the nuts fast, before the frosting hardens, or they will never stick.

I think they turned out quite nicely. I won't say it was my favorite cookie of all time, but pretty good. It is perfect if you like something that is not overly sweet or chocolaty.

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