Slow Cooker Butterscotch Pudding

I use my slow cooker quite a lot but never really for desserts. I have a book called The Slow Cooker and it has a section at the back on cakes and desserts and decided a little while ago to try a butterscotch pudding.

It's not very healthy - full of sugar and cream - but as an occasional treat I think it would be OK! I reduced the quantities to serve two, and definitely wouldn't have been able to get six ramekins into my slow cooker at the same time. You cook the puddings in a water bath so they set like a custard - they taste really good.

To serve two, you need:
1 tbsp. butter
pinch of salt
137g soft brown sugar
150ml double cream
85ml milk
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

Melt the butter in a small pan and mix in the sugar and salt. Pour in the cream and milk and heat until just simmering but don't allow the mixture to boil.

Put the egg yolks into a bowl and pour in the cream mixture slowly, whisking as you go. Stir in the vanilla extract and pour the mixture into two ramekin dishes.

Put the ramekin dishes into the slow cooker and carefully pour water into the slow cooker, taking care not to get any water into the puddings, until the water comes half way up the sides of the ramekins.

Cook on low for about two hours or until the puddings are set.

Cool the ramekins on a wire rack for 15 minutes then cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Top with whipped cream to serve

These are very sweet as you might imagine and I could only eat half of one- but I couldn't have made them smaller as these were the only ramekins I have! My husband had no problem polishing one off anyway!

I'm sharing this with the Slow Cooked Challenge, hosted by Lucy at BakingQueen74 and also Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat the Baking Explorer.

Butterscotch Cow Cookies with an engraved rolling pin

Browsing Etsy before Christmas I came across this awesome rolling pin:

 There’s a shop on Etsy selling rolling pins with all kinds of patterns; you can also ask for a custom design to be made for you. As regular readers might know, when I get married in June I will be Mrs Cowe – and I am already embracing my inner cow!

 

This rolling pin lets you make very simple cookies and then imprint the design on them which is so cute. I decided to make sugar cookies flavoured with butterscotch to try the rolling pin out.

 

The basic sugar cookie recipe is:

225g butter, softened

110g caster sugar

275g plain flour

And I added 1 tsp of butterscotch flavouring

 

Preheat oven to 180C. Cream the butter and sugar, fold in the flour and add the flavouring. You should have a pliable dough – roll out on a lightly floured surface.

 

You can’t use the textured rolling pin for the initial rolling as you can’t go backwards and forwards over the dough or the pattern won’t work. So instead I used a regular rolling pin – but remember to roll out the dough to slightly thicker than you actually want it, as you are going to roll it again with the textured rolling pin.

 

I found I needed to press quite hard with the textured rolling pin to get enough of an indent that would still show up properly when the cookies were in the oven.

 

I then cut out circles with a cutter, and re-rolled the remaining dough until it was all used.

 

Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper. The easiest way to move the cookies onto your baking sheet is with a palette knife which is a handy tool to have for decorating cakes as well.

 

Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown and leave to cool. It’s a little hard to see the cow pattern on the cookies from certain angles but it is very visible – I gave these to my fiancé and he didn’t spot the pattern straight away but when he did, he thought it was really cool!

 

 

I’m considering giving these out at my wedding which we have nicknamed Cowefest!

 

I'm sending these to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker. She has chosen the letter C this month.

 

 

 

Layered Butterscotch Oreo Pudding

When I went to a barbecue at my friend Ros' house over the summer she made this amazing dessert.

Either luckily or unluckily for me (as I am trying to diet, but it looked amazing) I don’t like mint, and there was mint flavour in both the filling and the chocolate! My other half loved it though so I decided to make the same type of dessert but with a different flavour – butterscotch.

 

I had seen a new flavour of Oreo in Asda (which has been available in America for a long time) called Golden Oreos. They are a bit like custard creams but a little saltier I think, and really nice (though not as good as chocolate Oreos!). I also wanted to incorporate these into a dessert so decided to make this the bottom layer.
 

 

I completely followed Ros' recipe so I won't repeat it here; the only changes were that I used Golden Oreo cookies instead of chocolate Oreos for the base, and for the filling I left out the mint Aero, the green food colouring and the mint extract and instead I used butterscotch flavouring.

Similarly for the topping I left out the mint Aero and mint extract and instead decorated the top with some butterscotch chips I got in the US. It was a very indulgent and very nice!

I'm sharing this with We Should Cocoa, hosted this month by It's not easy being greedy, on behalf of Choclette of Tin and Thyme as the theme this month is America.

 

Butterscotch Blondies

 

 

I set out to make strawberry blondies to use up some leftover strawberries, and found this recipe on the Food Network website. As I started making it, I realised that it used strawberry jam rather than fresh strawberries, and butterscotch chips, which I thought sounded really nice but not necessarily combined with strawberries… so  I set my punnet of strawberries to one side while I found a different recipe to use those, and made what I am calling Butterscotch Blondies instead!

 

You need

4 tbsp butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

1 egg

¾ cup plain flour

¼ tsp baking powder

½ cup butterscotch chips

 

Preheat oven to 180C. Line a square baking tin with parchment, or if you have a brownie pan like I do, spray each section with Cake Release.

 

Melt the butter and the sugar in a bowl in the microwave for 1 minute on high. Stir in the vanilla and the egg.

  

 

 

 

 

In a larger bowl if necessary, fold the butter and sugar mixture into the flour and baking powder. Stir in the butterscotch chips and spoon into the pan.

 

 

Bake for 20 minutes – they should still be a little soft as they come out of the oven. Leave to cool in the pan then if you have baked it in a square tin, remove from the pan and cut into squares. If you have a brownie pan, job done!

 

I'm sharing these with Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat at The Baking Explorer as they have an 'anything goes' theme this month.

 

Layered Chocolate Pudding and Ozeri Double-Walled Glasses Review

 

 

These double-wall glasses, as they are apparently called, are great for hot and cold drinks and also a nice way to serve desserts.

 

I was sent a set of Curva Artisan Series double wall glasses by Ozeri (£24.96 on Amazon at the moment or 33 euros on the Spanish Amazon site) to review. So as well as using it for drinks, I created a yummy layered chocolate dessert recipe (see below).

 

 

 

The glasses came in an attractive box that I thought would make a nice gift, and each glass was individually wrapped in bubble wrap to protect it.

 

 

 

The double wall keeps cold drinks insulated and free of condensation, and also means hot drinks won’t feel as hot through the glass- I made a cup of tea and after I poured in boiling water the glass still felt cool! It did heat up after I left the drink a while of course but it makes quite an elegant way to serve a fruit tea or even a coffee I think.

 

 

The glasses were surprisingly lightweight; they are made from borosilicate glass which is stronger and shatter resistant and not as heavy as glass. I really liked the way the liquid looked like it was suspended inside the glass; it creates a cool optical effect that I thought would work well for desserts.

 

I was inspired by this recipe on Mel's Kitchen Café, for a peanut butter and chocolate layered dessert but as my boyfriend doesn't like peanut butter (I know, right?!) I decided to change the flavour for butterscotch. I bought some butterscotch flavouring on Amazon as I had a couple of recipes in mind I wanted to use it for. I also decided to add an Oreo cookie at the bottom of the dessert so my recipe was quite different in the end.

 

To serve two, you need:

2 Oreos

 

For the butterscotch layer:

1/4 cup caster sugar

2.5 tsp cornfour

pinch of salt

1 cup milk (any kind apart from skimmed)

1/4 cup double cream

few drops of butterscotch flavouring or vanilla if you don't have it

 

For the chocolate layer:

3 tbsp. caster sugar

1 tbsp. cornflour

1 tbsp. cocoa powder

3/4 cup milk (any kind apart from skimmed)

1/4 cup double cream

50g plain chocolate, chopped

 

To decorate:

whipped double cream

chocolate shavings or butterscotch chips

 

First make the butterscotch or vanilla layer. Mix the sugar, cornflour and salt and mix in a little of the milk to make a paste. Stir in the rest of the milk and cream and bring to the boil whisking constantly. When the mixture has just boiled remove from the heat and add the butterscotch or vanilla flavour. Allow to cool a little.

 

Place an Oreo cookie at the bottom of each serving glass and spoon over the butterscotch pudding. Place in the fridge to chill.

 

Make the chocolate layer; mix the sugar, cornflour, cocoa powder with a little milk to make a paste. Add the rest of the milk and cream and bring to the boil whisking constantly. When the mixture has just boiled add the chocolate and stir until melted then remove from the heat. Allow to cool a little. Spoon on top of the butterscotch layer and chill in the fridge until completely cooled.

 

To serve, spoon some whipped cream on top and add some butterscotch chips or chocolate shavings.

 

 

I'm sending this to We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette at Tin and Thyme, as this month she is accepting any chocolate recipes.

 

 

 

Nigella's Ice Cream Cake with Butterscotch Sauce

We had friends round last Sunday for lunch and I wanted to make a dessert, and I also wanted to make a cake, but thought we probably wouldn’t have wanted to eat both – so this ice cream cake in Nigella Lawson’s Nigella Express seemed the perfect compromise.

 

 

Her recipe is quite brief and this is one of those wonderful desserts where you can substitute all sorts of ingredients, which I did. It also gave me the chance to try out a new cake mould.

 

 

You need about 1.5 litres of ice cream- that will probably serve 8 or more – but I would actually recommend adjusting the quantity depending on the serving bowl you intend to use and adjusting the other ingredients accordingly.

 

I used a plain vanilla ice cream – Carte d’Or, which was very creamy and rich – and I think using a relatively plain flavour would be better (as you are going to add things to it) but really you could use any flavour.

 

Take the ice cream out of the freezer and allow to soften until it is a consistency you can mix with a spoon.

 

Take 200g chocolate chips, or any sort of chocolate/sweets/candy that goes with the flavour ice cream you have chosen – for instance you could use fudge chunks mixed in with toffee ice cream (there’s a good idea!). I used mini Hershey’s kisses which were basically chocolate chips. Mix in to the ice cream.

  

Next break up 150g of bourbon biscuits – but again, you could use something else. Finally bash up two Crunchie bars, and add the biscuit and the Crunchie to the ice cream mixture and stir again.

 

 

Spoon into your mould and return to the freezer to set.

 

 

About ten minutes before you are ready to eat the dessert, take the ice cream out of the fridge and make the butterscotch sauce. Place 45g light brown sugar and 2 tbsp granulated sugar in a small pan, along with 150g golden syrup and 30g butter. Heat, stirring, until the butter has melted. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes, then add 125ml double cream. Take off the heat and stir well. Serve as a hot sauce over the ice cream – it was a delicious addition.

 

I received this silicon cake mould for Christmas – it is a flower shape so looks pretty when served as a whole but the clever thing is that if you cut each slice in the right place, every slice comes out as a perfect heart shape!

 

 

So this is a lovely mould to use for Valentine’s day. For that reason I’m sharing this with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I’m hosting this month, as the letter is V.

 

 

 

I am also sending this to the Food Year Linkup, a challenge I’ve just come across which celebrates various calendar events so this is perfect for Valentine’s day. The challenge is hosted by Charlotte at My Recipe Book.

 

 

Over at Treat Petite, love is in the air- that is their theme this month – so I am also sending them my heart-shaped ice cream cake. The challenge is hosted this month by Kat at the Baking Explorer and in alternate months, Stuart at Cakeyboi.

 

 

  

The theme for Love Cake is ‘for the love of cake’ and Nigella does call this an ice cream cake, so I am (slightly cheekily) submitting it to Ness at JibberJabberUK.