Make some Butterscotch in 7 minutes

"Caramel is simply sugar cooked to the point where it melts and then beings to burn. Old cookbooks refer to it, appropriately enough, as burnt sugar. Butterscotch is similar, except that butter is added to the sugar as it caramelizes, resulting in the characteristic deep, nutty taste." - The Joy of Cooking 'About caramel and butterscotch sauces'

I am not a frosting kind of a girl. Nor am I a girl who slathers sugar-saturated peanut(ish) spread on toast in the mornings. I am, however, willing to experiment, and to trust those who ply me with delicious photos of amazing sauces that I eat less than once a year. So when I read the Smitten Kitchen recipe for Butterscotch sauce, I was so on it.

Pardon the soft-focus, warm photos, please. My flash died and I am saving our last batteries for the upcoming holiday festivities. As I was saying earlier, I am not a frequent consumer of candy-like sauces. When I made this butterscotch I didn't really know what I wanted to accomplish flavour-wise, and I didn't actually have anything to drizzle it over.

But it was so easy, and so unintimidating and I already had everything in my fridge. I've started keeping heavy cream on hand, because it can be so easily turned into delicious things. The little carton in my fridge was best before Dec. 11, but those are just guidelines. And they're for suckers.

There is a just a bit of whisking involved, to mix up the salt, the sugar and the butter. Then you boil it "gently" for five minutes, remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Then you're supposed to add additional salt and vanilla to taste.

But I don't really have a taste-memory of sublime butterscotch, so I just tasted it, felt blissful, and scurried around for a clean jar to keep it in. So I could put it under my pillow and dream about it...

As I start to package up homemade Christmas gift-goodies, I am understanding the importance of keeping cute, functional and clean jars around. This one is a pesto jar. I would love to share some of my gift ideas...but some recipients might just read this, and I love surprising people :) I will tell you that I am going to be doing some canning this week, and it's going to be epic...

This is completely unrelated, but is anyone out there a CBC 2 fan? I'm listening to the Signal right now, and it's kind of perfect. Hard to beat Rich Terfry/Buck 65's show (as he's been my favourite music making man since 2003), but this is a very, very close companion to that spot. Do yourself a favour and tune in sometime.