Butterscotch

I've knocked out my new/old baking resolution for April in one feel swoop.  I was staring at my empty fridge, kinda full freezer, and scant pantry.  I found no quick foods to eat and kept staring at the giant container of oats.  Giving into temptation, I baked oatmeal cookies last night - I still have plenty of butter from the sale, and lord knows I don't need to save the oats for anything.

Testing has shown that butterscotch oatmeal cookies are the best, so that's what I make, with pecans added.  (They were tested against oatmeal raisin, cranberry, and chocolate chip, all of which taste inferior to the butterscotch.)  But my pantry only had half a bag of the proper chips and I'd made a whole batch of cookie dough.  Then, I noticed a bag of carmels I'd purchaced under the delusion that I'd use them to coat apples.  I unwrapped a dozen of them, cut each into 8 little hunks, and tossed them in the 2nd half of the cookie dough.   I hadn't tried this before, and it turned out that I had to turn the oven temp down from 350 to 330 or so to prevent the carmel from scortching on the cookies where it leaked out the sides.   But all in all, they were pretty tasty.  So if I want to go through the annoyance of cutting up hunks of carmels, they're a fine option too.

It's just been a butterscotchy time of the year, though.  Mom had me try to make cinnamon rolls the other day.  The ingredients are frozen dough balls  from the freezer section, a stick of butter, a cup of brown sugar, and a box of (wait for it....) butterscotch pudding (not instant).  Well... the store I was at didn't have that flavor.  I subbed in vanilla and aside from boiling over in my oven, everything was fine.  Mom, however, sent me butterscotch pudding in my easter mix.  Just in case the other stores don't have it either.  So I'll probably be trying the rolls again, to see if butterscotch works the same magic on them as it does oatmeal cookies.