Hopscotch Brownies (Caramel/Butterscotch Brownies)

I began my love of the kitchen as a child. My mother would let me help her make cookies, and cakes and such. When I was about 10, friends from Ireland came to visit for the summer. With them they brought me a cookbook called "The Kitchen Wizard", complete with matching apron. A treasure of a book full of fun recipes for kids. I made sponge toffee, pull taffy, hard candies, all kinds of treats. It was a challenge though as all the measurements were in metric/grams. Managed to convert my favorites and now fortunately have a conversion scale in the kitchen.
Clearing out some old boxes I found my beloved childhood recipe book. It brought back many fond memories of the hours spent in the kitchen with my mom and friends.

This was always one of my favorite recipes. It has actually been doubled as my son has it to memory and dictated it to me. He has taken over the Butterscotch Brownie tradition in the house and has mastered it. If you wish a smaller batch cut the recipe in half.
By the way, he has announced I must credit him with mastering the perfect brownie, so I shall, as he does indeed make a perfect butterscotch brownie.

Butterscotch Brownies Recipe

1/2 cup butter
2 cups light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs (large)
1 1/2 cups white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup crushed pecans (optional)

Melt butter in a medium saucepan at medium.

Enter in the brown sugar and stir the mixture until all the brown sugar becomes wet from the melted butter.

Put the eggs into the substance with the vanilla extract and continue to stir until neither are visible.

Add the flour, baking powder, and salt into the mixture and stir until the dry ingredients are fully mixed and the substance will appear a light brown colour that is a little difficult to mix.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Pour the mixture into a parchment paper lined 9 X 13 cakepan and make sure that the mixture covers the entire bottem of the pan.

When the oven is ready, put the cakepan into the oven for 25 minutes.

When ready, let the brownies cool and cut after about 10-15 minutes. These are really good cooled but absolutely amazing when still warm.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention how wonderful this old cookbook is. It is now out of print but is titled Kitchen Wizard by Deborah Jarvis. I must thank Ms. Jarvis for introducing me to my love of baking in a fun entertaining way. The book is divided into sections to teach kids how to prepare ingredients such as "Basic Abracadabra", and Tricks of the Trade.

The recipes are divided into fun sections such as A Munchkin Brunch, Lunch in Lilliput, Huckleberry Finn Raft Picnic, A Boston Tea Party, Smugglers Snacks, Dinner with Davy Crocket, and Eskimorsels. All recipes have fun names such as "Flying Monkey Muffins", "Playing Hookey Cookies", and Huckleberry Buckle. My daughter now uses my old Apron and Deborah is now passing this love on to another generation. If anyone ever sees a copy of this in a used book store be sure to pick it up. It's wonderful.