My husband, the baker

I love to bake.  Desserts, casseroles, breads...anything that requires an oven.  So much so that I have an at-home bakery business.  My husband is an electrician.  He can figure out pretty much anything with wires. Computer systems, electrical systems, fiber optics, fire alarms.  He loves that stuff and actually even teaches at a local trade school.

While my husband is great with wires, he doesn't bake much.  Mostly because I love to do it and he just gets in my way when he is in the kitchen.  For Thanksgiving this year, his aunt usually makes a butterscotch pie.  This year, she wasn't able to make it to the Thanksgiving festivities, so he decided to make the butterscotch pie himself.  At 10:00 at night.  After a long day of getting ready for house guests and working.  And after his wife said he could do it but she wouldn't help.

He found a recipe online that sounded good.  Except reading through the directions, he had to ask me to define a couple of terms.  Like "tempered eggs" and double boiler.  It was going to be a long night.

So, the directions said, "In top of double boiler, combine brown sugar, cornstarch, salt and milk".  He read the reviews at the bottom and saw that if you didn't have a double boiler (or in his case, didn't know what one was) you could use a pan over medium heat.  He took that literally and heated the pan up to medium heat for a few minutes and added the brown sugar.  POOF.  The sugar went up in a cloud of smoke and the entire house smelled like burnt sugar.  I don't know how, but our fire alarms didn't go off.  Guess he will have to check and make sure they are working correctly!

Anyway, needless to say, I ended up helping out a little.  But it tasted good (although several of us were banned from trying it because we were laughing too hard during the entire process).  Maybe now my husband will have a little more appreciation for my job in the kitchen?!

If you are interested in trying the recipe, here's the recipe we used.  We also added whipped topping to it (but you could also do meringue) and butterscotch chips and a crushed butterfinger candy bar.  Enjoy!

Photo: Charles Schiller; Styling: Lynn Miller

Grandma's Butterscotch Pie

Ingredients

• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups milk
• 2 egg yolks, beaten
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 (9 inch) pie crust, baked

Directions

1. In top of double boiler, combine brown sugar, cornstarch, salt and milk. Stir and keep stirring until it thickens.
2. Mix in egg yolks, stir and keep cooking until it thickens.
3. Remove from heat, and add butter or margarine and vanilla. Keep stirring.
4. Pour into cooked pie crust. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 5 minutes or until brown.