Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Like a golden sweet caramelized nectar of goodness.
Texture: The crust is buttery yet crunchy, the butterscotch filling is thick and rich, while the whipped cream is light and creamy.
Ease: The butterscotch pudding filling does take a few steps, but there’s no pie crust involved and it can be made ahead of time.
Pros: Delightful fall pie.
Cons: None!
Would I make this again? Absolutely.
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This Butterscotch Pie packs so much fall flavor into one delicious pie.
In a world full of salted caramel, butterscotch is often overlooked and forgotten. Poor butterscotch.
That’s why I’m excited to shine the spotlight on butterscotch with this pie recipe. It’ll make you remember just how wonderfully sweet and complex the stuff is. Liquid gold! Well, in this case, pudding gold.
I particularly love this recipe for holidays like Thanksgiving. Why? Well, there’s no pie crust involved. Just a simple ground cookie crust, which comes together in no time.
Also, this recipe has to be made ahead of time. It doesn’t take up more than 10 minutes in the oven, since the filling is made on the stovetop.
Every bite just tastes like fall goodness.
I hope you will give this pie a try this Thanksgiving!
How to Make Butterscotch Pie
The Crust
One of my favorite parts of this recipe is the sweet yet spiced Biscoff cookie crust! They’re like a combination of gingerbread and graham crackers and they complement the butterscotch flavor oh so well.
You can find them at most grocery stores. I’ve seen them at Walmart, Target, and Kroger stores and you can find them under the name Speculoos at Trader Joe’s. You can also buy them from Amazon here.
Crust Alternatives for Butterscotch Pie
If you can’t find or don’t want to use Biscoff, you can easily replace it with 250 grams of any other crispy cookie. That’s 17 graham crackers (when I say graham cracker, I mean the full rectangle). Vanilla wafers or gingersnaps would also be fun options!
Butterscotch Pie Filling (read this!)
I highly recommend reading the recipe through once or twice before you actually get started making the filling. It’s not hard, I promise, but there are a few different components involved. You make a caramel / butterscotch sauce, then make pudding which involves tempering eggs.
Tempering sounds really fancy but it’s basically just how we gently bring the eggs up to temperature without scrambling them. I talk more about tempering in this video post for how to make homemade custard ice cream.
Whole milk really does work best here. You may be able to get away with 2% milk, but anything lower will lead to a watery filling that won’t set quite as well. I have not tried this recipe with any non-dairy subs.
Which Pie Pan Should I Use for Butterscotch Pie?
This recipe was written to use a 9-inch pie pan. Be sure your pie dish isn’t too shallow. This recipe basically fills the pie pan all the way to the top with butterscotch goodness.
How to Make Butterscotch Pie Ahead
- This pie must chill for at least 6 hours in the fridge.
- I almost always just make it the day before I plan to serve it so it can firm up completely overnight.
- It’ll stay good in the fridge for a few days, but the crust will get soggy the longer it sits.
- The whipped cream topping is best made the day it’s served.
- Serve chilled.
More Pie Recipes:
- French Silk Pie
- Peanut Butter Pie
- Caramel Apple Streusel Pie
- Pumpkin Hand Pies (for Halloween)
- Blueberry Pie
Butterscotch Pie
Ingredients
For the cookie crust:
- 32 Speculoos / Biscoff cookies (250 gram package)
- 6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, melted
For the filling:
- 6 large egg yolks, beaten
- 3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) packed dark brown sugar
- 1/3 cup (43 grams) cornstarch
- 3/4 teaspoon fine salt
- 3 cups whole milk
- 1 tablespoon (14 grams) unsalted butter
For topping:
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream, cold
- 3 tablespoons (23 grams) powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Crushed Speculoos / Biscoff cookies, for garnish, if desired
Instructions
Make the crust:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the Speculoos cookies until finely ground. Add the butter and pulse until moistened. Use the bottom of a measuring cup or glass to press the crust mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a fairly deep 9-inch pie plate. Bake until fragrant, about 12 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.
Make the filling:
- Read the filling instructions completely before beginning.
- Whisk the egg yolks together in a large heatproof bowl until smooth. Set aside.
- In a small stainless saucepan, combine the granulated sugar with 1/4 cup water. Gently stir with a silicone spatula. Cook over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Increase the heat to medium-high and continue to cook, swirling the pan occasionally without stirring, until the mixture turns a dark amber color, about 10 minutes total. Be careful not to burn. You can always return to heat and cook more, but you can't undo a burnt butterscotch!
- Remove from heat. Gradually stir in the heavy cream. Set aside.
- In a medium saucepan, whisk together the brown sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Add half of the milk, whisking to combine. Whisk in the remaining milk. Set over medium-high heat, whisking often, until the mixture comes to a boil. Remove from heat and add in the butterscotch mixture.
- Gradually ladle about a quarter of the hot liquid into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, to temper the eggs. Add another quarter of the hot mixture to the eggs, whisking constantly. Slowly transfer the egg mixture back into the saucepan. Whisking constantly, bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 2 to 3 minutes, or until thickened like pudding.
- Remove from heat and stir in the butter. Whisk vigorously for 1 minute to encourage the mixture to cool. Pour through a mesh sieve into the prepared crust to remove any lumps.
- Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 6 hours or overnight to set. At this point, the pie can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge for up to 2 days.
Make the topping:
- In a medium mixing bowl, use an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment to beat the cream on medium-high speed until it begins to thicken. Add in the sugar and vanilla and continue to beat until soft peaks form.
- Spread over the chilled pie. Garnish with Speculoos crumbs, if desired. Serve chilled.
This post was published in 2018 and has since been updated with additional recipe tips. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
October 2020 Baking Challenge
This recipe was the October 2020 selection for our monthly baking challenge. Every month you can join the challenge by baking the recipe and snapping a photo for a chance to win prizes! Learn more about my monthly baking challenges here. Check out everyone’s pies:
Quick question – would the butterscotch flavor be stronger if I switch the brown and white sugars? Brown for butterscotch and white for the pudding?
Hi Kim! Apologies if I’m misunderstanding your question, but the butterscotch pudding does contain both white granulated sugar and dark brown sugar. The combination as written will yield a beautiful butterscotch flavor and a perfect texture. Feel free to experiment as you wish, but I personally made this pudding as written for Thanksgiving last year and it was a huge hit with my family. I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
This was an amazing recipe. the only thing we did differently was add some bourbon. I have been searching for a good butterscotch pie recipe!
My father in laws favorite, I’ve never heard of it till I asked what his favorite dessert was.
I made it for his Birthday one year, he loved everything about it, I looked at a lot of recipes before my first attempt, by far this is the best.
My mother in law mentioned she had tried to make this pie through the years but hers always turned to soup! Not that it didn’t still taste good, but I scored a home run with mine, I like to add a few crushed cookies into the topping for a fun crunch.
Well here I go… another birthday another pie.
So glad to hear this was such a hit with your father-in-law, Heather!!
Hello there,
Thinking about making this dessert along with a few others for Thanksgiving. I’m wondering if you think this pie has enough structure to bake and then use little circle cutters/biscuit cutters to cut out mini pieces of the pie? Then stick a tooth pic in them so they are bite sized?
Thank you!
Emily
Hi Emily! We haven’t tried that, but as long as you follow the directions and set the pie fully in the fridge for at least 6 hours or overnight, it may be possible. Again, as we haven’t tried that, I couldn’t say for sure! Perhaps it would be easier/safer to spoon the filling into a mini cheesecake tin (after baking the mini crusts in there and cooling)? Good luck and happy baking!
I’m making the butterscotch pie. Sugar is a amber gold and when Islowly poured the cream in it hardened lime toffee. Can I reheat to melt.
Hi Pat! If I’m understanding you correctly, and you have just added the cream to the melted sugar, it sounds like you may be able to rescue it if you very gently reheat the mixture – but it may not be possible. Caramel mixtures can be so temperamental, and it’s not always the easiest thing to make! I hope you were able to rescue your mixture and enjoy this pie!
Butterscotch is my husband’s favorite! This is what he wanted for his birthday tomorrow. Made a different recipe and it tasted like straight brown sugar. So I cranked out one of these and saved the recipe to my iPad so I’d never make that mistake again!! Thank you for an amazing recipe!!
So excited you enjoyed this pie, Sharyn!! I hope your husband loves it, too! (and Happy Birthday to your husband!)
I won a contest with this recipe. Absolutely amazing flavor! Definitely worth the work when people gush all day long about how good it is! Followed all the directions exactly.
Amazing, Michele! Congratulations, and thanks so much for sharing! Happy to hear it was such a hit!
Can you tell me if the heavy cream in the filling is the same product as the heavy whipping cream in the topping? At the geocery store I can find heavy whipping cream and whipping cream, but nothing that’s called heavy cream.
Yes, they’re the same, just different names 🙂 You’ll find heavy cream/heavy whipping cream near the milk in the grocery store, whereas whipping cream is typically found in the freezer section. You just want to make sure that the heavy cream you purchase has no less than 36% milk fat. Whipping cream has a slightly lower milk fat content, about 30-35%. It has a much lighter texture and won’t hold its peaks for as long. I hope that helps!
Last year I made this and it came out perfectly. I made it yesterday and sliced into it today and it didn’t set properly. I read another blogger’s post regarding making pudding pie and she said to cook the pudding at medium heat because cooking it at a heat that is too high will cause the pudding to be runny. My stove has numbered settings 1-6 where 1 is low heat and 6 is high heat. The recipe says to cook on medium high and I think last year I cooked at 4 and it turned out well but yesterday I cooked at 5 and the pudding didn’t set. I read a couple of comments where people said there pie didn’t set and I’m pretty sure it’s because it was cooked at a heat that was too high.
Hi Esther! A runny pudding usually means that it wasn’t cooked for long enough at a high enough temperature to set. Too high of a temp and you run the risk of burning your pudding! It’s possible that with the higher temp you baked your pie at this time, it just wasn’t cooked for long enough.
Excellent pie!! The custard is incredibly thick and flavorful and creamy. It’s definitely worth it to make your own whipped cream, too! It deserves it.
So happy you enjoyed this recipe, Grace!
I doubled the recipe to make two pies. For the pie filling, I used Wholesome Delicious Organic Light Brown Sugar from Costco (a little darker than C and H Light Brown Sugar) and was very happy with the taste and color of the pudding/filling. Otherwise, I followed the filling recipe exactly. It is very appropriately sweet, rich, smooth, and deliciously special. For the crust, I used a regular butter recipe pie crust. I served it to sons who had asked for a chocolate cream pie, but I wanted to make something different.
Seeing that the pie filling takes six egg yolks was surprising. Now I am wondering how I can alter this recipe to make a chocolate pie.
So glad you tried this recipe out! For a chocolate pie option, feel free to check out my popular French Silk Pie recipe!
Great instructions. I’ve been looking for a good version of this family traditional pie. Thank you.
So glad you enjoyed this pie!