The Turn of the Season
Cranberry Pecan Butterscotch Brownies
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 1 cup cranberries fresh or frozen *
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and butter a 9 x 9-inch baking pan.
- Melt butter in a small pot over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar and cook, stirring, until dissolved, about two minutes.
- Remove from heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
- Stir in vanilla and egg, beating well to combine thoroughly.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt and add to the butter mixture, stirring until blended.
- Add pecans and berries and mix well.
- Spoon batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon.
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until top is golden brown. The centre will sink—don’t worry, this gives the bars their signature chewy texture. Allow to cool to room temperature before cutting into squares.
Notes
How was the cranberry harvest for you this year? Ours was good, but not in the usual places. We had to do some searching before we found berries and, and along the way, rediscovered how wonderful it is when you do. It’s the difference between abundance and scarcity, between hope and despondence.
Perhaps that’s part of the reason we go, year after year, for those recurring moments of joy, the reminder to keep on keeping on. Even in a poor year, those moments occur—a glimpse of berries tumbling out of a spruce stump, the discovery of a cache of wrinkled berries left by a tree squirrel or some other small creature. And the sheer pleasure of being out in the woods on a crisp fall day.
I have friends who continue picking right until the snow falls, and even afterwards. I admire their pluck. For me, in mid-October it’s time to hang up the buckets and get out the skate sharpener, in hopeful anticipation of a few weeks of cold weather before the snow flies, so the lakes freeze over and we can skate on clear ice while fish dart beneath us.
Along with the skate sharpener, October is the time to pull old cookbooks and see what can be adapted to accommodate the northern berries we so love. This recipe from the classic Joy of Cooking is a great one to have in your repertoire—fast, simple, made in one pot, and always a crowd favourite. Low bush cranberries add a note of boreal brightness.
