Butterscotch is the unsung hero of the dessert world. While caramel amped with salt is found in cookies, candies and ice creams galore, no one talks about butterscotch. It’s still waiting for its moment in the sun.
At least Nonnie’s Goodies recognizes its virtues. The Fostoria, Ohio bakery has seen fit to load its Oatmeal Scotchies with butterscotch chips. And in butterscotch’s quiet, typically heroic way, those chips make the entire cookie worth eating.
That’s not to say that the house oatmeal cookie isn’t a fine thing, all by itself. The Oatmeal Scotchies are sold in boxes, and each cookie is large with an appealing homespun flavor. It’s not terribly oatmeal-y or craggled, the oatmeal element blends into the rest of the cookie. It’s the sort of cookie you used to be able to buy at school bakes sales, before they started putting Chips Ahoy in the plastic baggies. Nonnie’s Oatmeal Scotchies are soft, without the weird chemical aftertaste of factory fare.
And then, with the addition of the chips: each cookie delivers a sweet, buttery butterscotch candy charge to every bite. It’s all very satisfying, the sort of thing that creates an old fashioned urge for milk.
The ingredient list testifies to its homespun-ness, with disclosures of oatmeal, flour, sugar, margarine and eggs. For the chemical-phobic, the list looks really long -then you realize that the bakery listed all of the things that go into enriched flour (niacin, iron, et al.), and the recipe seems less weird.
Nonnie’s Goodies makes other sorts of cookies too. There’s Chocolate Chip, Monster, as well as some unconventional sounding cookie offerings including Chocolate Malt and Pineapple. The bakery also produces coffee cakes, brownies and whoopie pies.
You can find out more about the offerings at www.nonniesgoodies.com; you can also order online. For impulse cookie buyers, Nonnie’s Goodies can be found at both The Hills Market and The Andersons.