Old Fashioned Butterscotch Cookies

These cookies get their butterscotch flavor the old-fashioned way: melted butter dissolved directly into brown sugar. No butterscotch chips, no artificial flavoring. The molasses in the brown sugar combined with melted butter creates a genuine caramel-toffee flavor that tastes like butterscotch candy in cookie form.

The ingredient list is short and the technique is straightforward. Melt the butter, dissolve the brown sugar in it, beat in the egg and vanilla, add the dry ingredients, and drop by the teaspoon. Eight minutes at high heat and they come out thin, crispy at the edges, and slightly chewy in the center.

These spread, so keep them an inch apart on the sheet. The thin batter means you get a lacy, almost tuile-like cookie that snaps when you bite through it.

Kitchen Tips

• Dissolve the brown sugar completely in the melted butter. Any undissolved sugar granules will create gritty spots in the cookie
• Beat the egg and vanilla well before adding the dry ingredients. This step adds the air that gives these otherwise flat cookies a slight lift
• Drop small spoonfuls. These spread significantly during baking, and large drops will merge into one giant cookie
• Pull them at light brown, not dark. The brown sugar makes these look darker than they are, and overbaked butterscotch cookies taste bitter

Variations

• Use almond extract instead of vanilla for a distinctly different, fragrant butterscotch cookie
• Add a handful of chopped pecans or toffee bits for crunch
• Sprinkle with flaky sea salt right after baking for a sweet-salty finish