Okay, that’s my life. I admit it. I have an ongoing love affair with brown sugar that is never going to end. Last week, we accidentally ran out of brown sugar, and I thought I was going to sit on the kitchen floor and cry. No baker worth her salt (or sugar, in this case) can do without the good stuff.

To apologize to brown sugar everywhere and make amends, I made these blondies. Blondies are the quintessential ode to brown sugar, a bar cookie packed with caramelized goodness. Plus, these are filled with butterscotch chips. That’s the life, baby!

I’m going to keep this post relatively short because my resources are stretched a little thin these days. Too much to do, and absolutely not enough time to do it all in. I’m sure you can relate, especially if you’re a woman. You know, because we can supposedly do everything.

So here’s me reaching out to you parents out there about kids fighting. It’s gotten really bad lately between my two older children, and I’m not sure what to do. No matter what we do, the two of them wind up going at it. It’s unrelenting, and I’m at the end of my rope. They literally fight about everything. If one of them says that it’s time for breakfast, the other one will be contradictory and insist that it’s too early, late, or whatever. It doesn’t matter, as long as they can argue about it. And this just goes on all day long.

Short of resorting to losing my mind, screaming at the top of my lungs, shipping them off to boarding school or a combination of the three, I need help. How do you handle kids who seem to fight all the time? Seasoned moms, I’m asking you for tips. Help me! Please. Consider it your act of kindness for this week.

The thing is, I often feel like a terrible mother. I’m easily distracted, often busy, and have a lot of my own going on. It’s tough to give my kids all the attention they need, and even though I see my brood more than most working moms see theirs, I feel that their fighting is somehow my fault. If I’m not engaging with them constantly and directly, then it all falls apart. Mom guilt sucks.

If there’s one thing I feel less guilty about, it’s how I feed them. They do pretty well in that department. After all, I’m the mom with the goodies!

The big appeal of this recipe is that it’s made in one bowl very quickly. The blondie base is my favorite, and you can adapt it however you like. So if butterscotch chips aren’t your bag, try something else!

Okay, I’m gonna go pay attention to my kids now before my house becomes a war zone. Send help!

Every time I post a butterscotch recipe, I talk about how I don’t ever remember to bake with it. But when I do, it’s the best flavor explosion. I’m trying to do it more often, and the overripe bananas on my countertop always present a fantastic opportunity.

If you are one of those people who craves moist (sorry if you dislike that word, but whatever) banana bread with crunchy pecans and sweet butterscotch chips, look no further. This bread is your soul mate! And it’s effortlessly gluten-free, too.

I’ve spent the past few days packing up the high school that I’ve been privileged enough to teach at for most of my career. I’ll be the English department chair at my new school and I’m excited about the change, but it’s definitely tough to leave a school I’ve loved so much. I’ve had the best students, the best colleagues, and just the best time ever. Teaching can be a total blast.

When I started packing the other day, I quickly became horrified at just how much stuff I’ve acquired over the years. We’re talking 10 full boxes of stuff, plus three giant file bins, plus bags of odds and ends. When I texted Kenny pics of all my packed-up possessions, his response was “good grief” followed by “digitize.” I then had to launch into an explanation of how much teachers need to do instruction every day, all day, for years and years. We teach an awful lot of content, and that equals a lot of files. Plus, we make what are called “class sets,” which are sets of 30 copies for all our students, which we save from year to year. That way, no extra paper wasting. It all adds up!

Still, I have this image of bursting into my new school with all this stuff and scaring my new colleagues. So I might want to take it in there gradually under the cover of night or something. That way, I’ll seem halfway sane. And I’m not even going to explain this whole baking blogger thing I do for quite a while. People accuse me of doing too much, and they’re probably right, but busy is good!

Some people are afraid of change, but if it’s a change with potential for growth, I really embrace it. So know that these next several months will be insane for me, but I’ll be a happy camper! You all know that I keep myself in dessert to make life awesome.

This banana bread is just the best, bar none. It’s springy and soft and yes, moist. It’s got butterscotch chips in the batter and sprinkled on top, and chopped pecans inside as well. Butterscotch and pecan is one of those genius combos that I always love using.

I hope you have a very happy holiday weekend. I might get motivated to post something in there, but I think the blogosphere is officially on hold, so we shall see. In the meantime, enjoy the fireworks and parades, and have a super happy fourth!

My dark hair has been graying for a few years now, and my approach to that is to dye my hair increasingly fun shades of whatever. Right now it’s kind of cherry cola red, but I really wanted to go blue for winter. Kenny vetoed that choice, but the game isn’t over yet. There’s always next winter!

But now it’s summer, and for some reason, I always think of butterscotch when things heat up. One of the best combos ever is butterscotch and oatmeal. These oatmeal scotchies are the perfect lazy day snack!

Back to the hair, though. Sorry, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot. We all age, but I’ve decided to age as gracelessly as possible. Instead of deciding that I’m too old for the stuff I love, like blue hair, Converse sneakers or t-shirts with obnoxious messages on them, I’m just gonna keep on trucking with the trends.

Part of the problem is that I teach in a high school, so I’m very much aware of what’s on trend. My goal is not to dress like a teenager, because that would be ridiculous. But I also don’t want to dress like a grown-up a lot of the time, because that’s boring. Kenny describes my style as “funky,” and I’ll stick with that. Funky is forever.

I’ll also keep eating like a teenager, because you know, they actually eat really well. My students always have apples around them, or cheese sticks. They seem to get the importance of nutrition. Gotta say, they’re a lot healthier than I was at that age. Back then, I regularly ate Little Debbie’s snack cakes for lunch.

They do, however, love eating cookies, so I’ll do that too. Because really, what’s better than a cookie that’s chewy and yet still crispy at the edges? And full of butterscotch goodness?

This one is a classic, and I enhanced its oatmeal flavor by baking the cookies with oat flour. That makes them even chewier. It’s a win all around.

Whatever you might be doing this summer, try and have some fun with trends. Summer is a great time to experiment with new fashion or food. If that means you go running for the pink hair dye, so be it. I’ll be right there next to you!

Everyone’s busy making holiday toffee, but I didn’t feel like taking out my candy thermometer and dusting it off. Dusting is boring. Instead, I cheated with these amazing cookie bars. You will not want to stop eating them, but that’s not really a problem.

Covered in butterscotch goodness and crushed toffee, I can’t imagine a better holiday cookie offering. I mean, I’ve made a lot of different bars this season, but this one is above the ordinary bar.

Last week, I took two days away from my job to take a class. It’s pretty much ingrained in teachers to want to keep learning, so we take a lot of classes.

Gotta be honest here: I kept losing focus while I was in class, which brought me back to my days in school. College and graduate school were fine because the classes were shorter, but this class made me remember what it’s like to sit all day while people make you work. It’s hell.

It’s kind of ironic for a teacher to be saying this, but I really don’t think we were meant to sit still all day. I’m lucky to have a very active job that lets me stand and move at will, but I think about people with desk jobs and I wonder how they don’t lose their minds. How do you sit in one place for eight hours or more and not completely lose it?

Today I’m grateful to be back in my classroom with my students, bopping around and getting stuff done. But I do feel for the kids I work with, who move from class to class without much of a break. It must be tough, and now I realize that my increased academic success in college probably had to do with more than just maturity. It probably had to do with getting more breaks and a chance to clear my head.

If I can’t get actual breaks in my day, at least there are snack breaks. And I always want my snacks to be of the highest possible caliber, so these butterscotch toffee bars fit the bill!

The base is my favorite cookie base of all time, which is heavy on the brown sugar for added moisture. It’s soft and pretty hard to stop eating. I slathered melted butterscotch chips on top and then sprinkled on chocolate toffee bits. Heaven, you guys. Just heaven.

This is one of those bar cookies that I had to give away immediately for fear of turning into a cookie monster. But it’s the holiday season, so everyone’s willing to eat some extra cookies for me! And I love spreading the cheer.

If you’re looking for the perfect butterscotch toffee fix, here it is. Look no further!

Or, you know, hidden in a closet from your kids. Whichever image suits you best.

I can’t think of a happier way to highlight the superiority of butterscotch than these thick cookie bars. They’re chock-full of butterscotch chips and topped off with even more of the stuff. Say hello to my new favorite bar cookie!

Recently, my favorite protein bar changed their recipe and now they taste gross. One part of me is really upset about this (time to find a new protein bar, so I’ll take suggestions!), but another part is relieved. I thought my tastes had changed, that something was wrong with me.

How often do our tastes change? They say every seven years, but it must be far more often than that. Either that, or our taste for a particular food changes every seven years, but not all foods. So, I might start liking coconut one year, and mint another, but not at the same time. What that means is that our tastes are changing all the time. That’s my nerdy theory, anyway!

When I bit into my protein bar a few weeks ago, it tasted absurdly sweet, like aspartame. I’m not into that at all, so I ate about three bites before casting it aside. Have you ever noticed that artificial sweeteners are often way too sweet? They just don’t taste good, not even to a dessert fanatic like me. There is such a thing as too much.

And too spicy, too. Kenny can eat food with any degree of heat, shrug, and say it’s not hot enough. Not me. I’m a total wimp. I take a bite of my favorite spicy crunchy salmon roll and have to down half a glass of water before eating another piece. Too much spice just ruins the flavor of the dish.

So not only do our tastes change, but they’re highly subjective. Never bother apologizing for your taste. If someone thinks you’re crazy because the thought of Thin Mints doesn’t get your heart racing with glee, tell them to get over it and enjoy having all the cookies to themselves. More for them!

And if you don’t like butterscotch, I’m not really sure what your problem is, but I accept it. Still, these bars are the very essence of butterscotch goodness, all chewy and thick and desirable. If you have no problem with butterscotch, get on this train, like, yesterday.

Look at how thick these guys are. I’m so proud of them. They have some real heft. Everyone loves a bar with bite. And they’re not only brown sugary, but they’re also full of butterscotch chips. I was very generous.

If you look closely at the pics, you’ll notice that the butterscotch chips on top are sort of melted-looking and bendy at the edges. That’s because I piled them on right after these bars came out of the oven. Butterscotch chips will pretty much hold their form unless you really force them not to, but if you put these on while the bars are hot, the chips will melt into the top of the bars and stay there, for the most part. Some will come off, and then you’ll eat them. It works either way.

When you’re done, you have a dessert bar to be proud of, something that is autumnal but that isn’t made out of apple or pumpkin. How’s that for change? After all, our tastes change all the time, and so should our treats. Getting stuck in a dessert rut is a big no-no. Embrace change!

The other day, my kids and I spent our first snow day of the season together. I’m always the parent on duty for snow days since I’m a teacher, so we do snuggly activities during the day. We watch movies, drink lukewarm chocolate (nothing hot for my babies!), dabble in arts and crafts, and of course, we bake.

This time, I happened to have some overripe bananas on the countertop, which could only mean one thing. In a world with bananas and children, there must be banana bread.

They went to town with the masher, let me tell you. Even my littlest, who is a miniature person. She decimated those bananas until they were perfect. I didn’t have to do any additional mashing. And of course, the kids particularly enjoyed pouring in the white chocolate and butterscotch chips, because they got a percentage of the mix-ins. I always let them munch when we bake.

This banana bread takes a while in the oven because you need to use a large loaf pan (there’s a ton of batter), so while it baked, we watched Shrek. Life is full of pleasures, but one of them has to be cuddling with your kids on the couch while the house fills up with the scent of freshly baked banana bread.

Then, of course, came the best part. I cut the banana bread into thick slices and we all ate it together for snack while we watched the snowflakes fall. My son wanted to spread peanut butter on his slice, and heck, he’s brilliant. It was delicious!

Snow days are meant for blankets and tea, for being dreamy, for hanging out without watching a clock. And they’re meant for banana bread. Don’t forget to slice it nice and thick!

I love my job dearly. I also love getting up later, wearing shorts and t-shirts every day, and tooling around the DC area sightseeing. I love being a tourist in my own city, and that’s what summer is about. Blazing, searing heat as I walk from Dupont Circle to Georgetown, stopping along the way for sips of frosty drinks. Or simpler pleasures are also nice. Scooping out ice cream for my kids as they play in the sprinkler, blowing bubbles. Drinking margaritas on the deck.

So don’t rush my season! July 4th isn’t close yet. Seize the day! Don’t let life speed by!

I’m done preaching. Now let’s turn the focus to these blondies, another perfect picnic staple. They have butterscotch. And caramel. And marshmallow fluff. They’re gooey and chewy and perfect. You’ll get sticky and you will not care at all.

These are layered bars, though it’s hard to tell from the pics. The caramel layer in the middle bakes into the top and bottom a bit, but still stays there to provide maximum texture amazingness. I can only describe the feeling of biting into these bars as pillowy. Like you’re biting into this soft yet ever-so-slightly resistant wonder of cooking science.

Have I mentioned that I can be pretty modest?

When it comes to blondies, I’m pretty much in love. And when you add the butterscotch and the caramel and the marshmallow, forget it. I will warn you that I did more than test these. I friggin’ ATE these.

The hardest thing about this recipe is determining when the whole kit n’ kaboodle is done. So you will need to use a toothpick, making sure you get moist crumbs, but nothing more. You might get nervous because the edges are cooking faster. If that happens and the middle isn’t done, edge some foil around the pan to block the edges from baking too far ahead of the rest. It’s a little trick I happen to love.

But whatever happens, prepare yourself for the sticky happiness. Because blondies should be sticky, especially in the summer. Especially at a picnic. Even if it’s not the fourth of July yet!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups light brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 package caramel bits (Kraft brand)
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk (I used fat-free)
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup butterscotch chips
• 1/2 cup marshmallow fluff

Instructions:

Peheat the oven to 350. Line a 9 x 13 pan with foil, leaving enough to overhang the sides, and coat in cooking spray.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Take a larger bowl and mix the brown sugar, melted butter, eggs and vanilla until just blended. Add the dry ingredients gradually and mix until incorporated. Fold in the butterscotch chips.

Spread half the batter in the prepared pan. Bake for 15 minutes until golden.

While that is baking, microwave the remaining 1/2 cup of butter with the caramel bits and condensed milk for two minutes, microwaving in thirty-second intervals after the initial time if the mixture is not melted. Stir after each heating to make a smooth mixture.

Pour the caramel over the baked blondie, and then drop the remaining blondie batter on top, spreading out gingerly. It doesn’t need to cover the whole surface. Using a spoon, drop the marshmallow fluff in intervals along the top and swirl with the batter and caramel gently.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs. Cool and cut into small squares.