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Wife's cookbooks contain thousands of little "cut out" recipes. This was one of them from a cracking yellow piece of newspaper paper, age unknown.

Butterscotch Pecan Bars (with modifications)

1/3 cup butter, melted
1¼ cups brown sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup chopped pecans
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Beat the butter and brown sugar together. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in pecans.

Blend the remaining ingredients together and stir in. Turn into a well-greased 9-inch cake pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cake tester comes out fairly clean.

Modification (optional)

½ cup milk chocolate bits
½ cup dark chocolate bits

Mix together and spread on top when baking is complete. Close oven door, with oven off, for a few minutes until chocolate bits melt.

Cool on rack then sift with icing sugar. Cut into squares. Makes about 20. (Note that these bars will freeze well.)

Oh gosh this looks easy! Thank you SO much!

You should get all of those scraps of newspapers and type them up for your wife... put them on a thumb drive or something. That would be a lovely gift for her, and a great way to preserve them.

questions about the modification:
are you substituting chocs for the butterscotch?
or adding them to make a chocky topping?
and where is the butterscotch in the recipe?

The recipe doesn't show any other ingredients. I've copied it verbatum. Chocolate was my wife's contribution. Comes from an ancient yellow newspaper clipping.

edible complex wrote:and where is the butterscotch in the recipe?

Although the term "butterscotch" has come to be used simply to describe a flavor, the makings of actual butterscotch sauce are right there in the recipe above.

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/0 ... scotch.php

Schuarta wrote:The recipe doesn't show any other ingredients. I've copied it verbatum. Chocolate was my wife's contribution. Comes from an ancient yellow newspaper clipping.

thnx...wasn't sure if the recipe called for butterscotch bits and you substituted with the choc bits in your modification.
and I think I've seen many copies of that "ancient yellow newspaper clipping" recipe book.

This is all I can offer you. My wife has hundreds of such clippings tucked in various pages of her cookbooks with similar "printed in the book" items. The "condition" of this clipping is actually quite good compared to some of the others.

The author of this particular recipe, noting that ingredients brown sugar, vanilla, butter, salt, etc are also used in "formal butterscotch", probably felt justified in calling this recipe Butterscotch Pecan Bars.