Scotcheroos

Scotcheroos have a couple things going against them. 1) They're kind of like the hot dogs of desserts. You may like eating them, but you probably don't want to know what's in them. 2) If you're 6 years old and say "scotcheroos" it's cute. Not so much if you're a grown adult. With that said, there's two things you should know about me. 1) I once watched a show on how they make hot dogs. I was grossed out for a couple of minutes and then started to really crave one. 2) I have a monkey-themed bathroom. Looking like a childish dork will not deter me.

The reason I say scotcheroos are the hot dogs of desserts is because of the vast amounts of "unhealthy" that goes into them. But that's what makes them sooooo good. And for my first venture into the world of scotcheroo making (people who know me know that I LOVE scotcheroos. Little do you know, I've never actually made them myself), I followed a recipe by Diane Pottratz who made the best scotcheroos I have ever eaten.

First, the sugar and the corn syrup get melted together. This is where I had my first, "I can't believe what's in here!" moment. All I can say, one cup of sugar, one cup of corn syrup. To be fair, I did use light corn syrup which apparently has 33% less calories than regular corn syrup. That should count for something.

Diane warned me in her recipe that I should heat these two until smooth but I should not boil them. I don't know what happens when it boils and I was a bit frightened. I stopped at this point in which the stuff was an even, runny, consistency, without any graininess of the sugar (that I could feel while stirring). There's lots of air bubbles (I think they're air bubbles) so it was deceiving. It kind of looked like the sugar hadn't dissolved, but I think they did...or at least they were mostly dissolved.

For the peanut butter I measured out 1 1/2 cups, looked at what was left in my little jar (it was a new little jar of chunky PB) and then decided to add the whole thing in. If adding a whole jar of peanut butter to this recipe is wrong, then I don't want to be right. But I did want to use a bigger saucepan, things got a little full and stirring was a perilous task.

But it worked out OK and stirring would get much easier when I transferred the goop into this giant bowl of Rice Krispies.

I got really excited at this point because it's all starting to come together and the magic of scotcheroos is building.

The next step was to make the delicious chocolatey-butterscotchery layer on top. I used bittersweet chocolate chips because that's what I have (I got a huge bag at Sam's Club and use it for everything chocolate) and I figured the bittersweet chocolate would cut back on the sweetness of scotcheroos (sometimes they get a bit overpowering) compared to using milk or semisweet chips.

Chocolate goes on top and the scotcheroo magic is at it's highest. I cannot wait to eat these at the lab meeting tomorrow.


Scotcheroos (recipe by Diane Pottratz)

1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
6 cups Rice Krispies
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips

Heat sugar and corn syrup in saucepan until smooth, do not boil. Add peanut butter and stir until melted. Add peanut butter mixture to Rice Krispies and stir to coat. Press into 9x13 greased pan. Melt chocolate and butterscotch chips until smooth and pour on top of pressed Rice Krispies.