Sunday, July 14, 2013

Birthday Butterscotch



35 years ago today my life was graced by the birth of my first child, Ryan. He was a joy to raise, and every day of his life has been a blessing to me. He is everything I could have ever hoped for in a son, and continues to amaze me with his compassion, intelligence, and giving nature. And to top that off, he has brought three wonderful girls into my life as well.....His wife, Vanessa, and their two daughters, Meryn and Zoe.  I have often featured my granddaughters as my sous chefs in this blog as Calicook and Zozo.

For Ryan's birthday this year, Calicook and Zozo wanted to help me make his favorite dessert, Butterscotch Torte. It's a heavenly concoction of creamy layers of goodness atop a shortbread crust. Today they made it all by themselves.  I only helped with the parts that required the oven or cooktop.

BUTTERSCOTCH TORTE

LAYER #1: CRUST:
1 cup flour
½ cup cold butter (I stick)
1 cup nuts, finely chopped (walnuts, pecans, or almonds)
½ cup powdered sugar (optional)

Mix flour and butter in food processor until crumbly. Stir in chopped nuts and press into bottom of 9 or 10 inch springform pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until slightly brown. Cool.


Here we have Calicook pressing shortbread crust into the pan. We like to use a 9 or 10" springform pan because it's easy to see all the layers and just looks pretty.

LAYER #2: CREAM CHEESE LAYER:
1 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup cool whip (buy 8 oz size), or 1 cup whipped cream
½ tsp vanilla

Whisk all ingredients together and spread over cooled crust.


LAYER #3: PUDDING LAYER:
2 small packages instant pudding (or cook and serve pudding), any flavor
3 cups milk

Mix pudding and milk together and spread over cream cheese layer.


ZOzo is spreading out the pudding layer. She matter-of-factly said, "It looks like dog poop".  Fortunately it taste much better than it looks.  Any flavor will do. Butterscotch, chocolate and lemon are our favorites flavors.

LAYER #4: WHIPPED TOPPING LAYER
Cool Whip, (or 1+ cup whipped cream)
Chopped nuts (optional)

Spread remainder of 8 oz. Cool Whip over pudding layer. Sprinkle nuts over the top. Chill several hours.

The whole thing gets topped of with whipping cream and is then sprinkled with nuts. Yum!

Serves 10-12