These Brown Butter Butterscotch Oreo Popsicles are seriously decadent and over the top delicious! Thick and creamy, with resounding flavors of brown butter, butterscotch and oreo. These oreo popsicles are guaranteed to be a favorite summer treat for kids and adult alike!
Can there ever be too many frozen dessert recipes in your freezer? If that is indeed the case, I never got that memo. And I’m glad I didn’t. Summer exists so that we can have a bountiful of frozen and fruit desserts!
I’m not sure if I went a little overboard with this one, but all I can say is that these Oreo Popsicles are some real bad boy popsicles! Make no mistake, these are a treat, a divine summer dessert in popsicle form. After all, who says popsicles can’t be more than just frozen fruit juice on a stick?
I made these oreo popsicles FOUR times before I achieved what I wanted, to take pictures of. Yup, four times before all the popsicles stars aligned for me and I perfected them. But hey, good things take time right?
And as far as easy summer recipes go, you can’t go wrong with these decadent oreo popsicles!
So why did I have to make these popsicles four times?
- Batch #1 – Popsicles got stuck in the popsicles molds + they didn’t freeze completely. We still ate ’em, and I was (secretly) happy to have to make them again.
- Batch #2 – I tried a different thickener, which worked, BUT did not give me the texture I wanted for the oreo popsicles.
- Batch #3 – Perfect. But we kind of ate ’em all before I could take pictures (oops!).
- Batch #4 – Perfect. Took some pictures before temptation set in.
Notes about these oreo popsicles
Be warned, these are some addictive cookies and cream popsicles! They are thick and creamy (like a dessert) with the distinct flavors of brown butter, butterscotch and Oreos all coming through, while not being overwhelming at all (a tough thing to achieve).
Since these popsicles have a higher sugar content (they are almost like ice cream), they will need a longer time in the freezer (or a colder freezer) to set. Of course, this could depend on your freezer, but just to be sure, I would leave them in the freezer overnight.
Why do cream popsicles not freeze as well as other popsicles?
Sugar, salt, and alcohol all act as inhibitors to the freezing process. Alcohol has a low freezing point (about -174°F/ -114°C) and when a significant amount of it is mixed with milk or any liquid that has a higher freezing point, it depresses (lowers) the freezing point of that liquid as well.
So your freezer is now forced to work a little harder to freeze that liquid.
And it’s the same with sugar in liquids. The more sugar (or salt) you add, the less it will let the water freeze completely into ice, because freezing requires the movement of water molecules through the solution.
But adding something like sugar or salt, hinders this movement and lowers the freezing point as a result. And with the addition of milk and cream, the fat molecules also act as inhibitors to the freezing process.
With ice cream, the situation is even more complicated, but let’s not go into that. Right now, the spotlight is on these bad boy homemade oreo popsicles! Unbelievably delicious and creamy, I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love these!
How to make oreo popsicles
Make brown butter
You can get tips on how to make brown butter and all the stages of this process. I also talk about it in detail in my brown butter butterscotch fudge sauce recipe.
For this recipe, you need to melt 4 tbsp of butter to make the brown butter, BUT you will ONLY use 1 tbsp PLUS all the burnt milk solids (which is where most of that flavor comes from).
And do whatever you like with the extra melted butter (use it to make an omelet? or drizzle it over toast? both worked pretty well or me!) 🙂
Make the butterscotch mix
Mix some of the brown butter with salt, brown sugar and cream in a saucepan and cook on medium high heat first and then on medium heat until it thickens into a syrup-like consistency.
Next, dissolve the cornstarch with 1/2 cup of the milk. Add this milk mixture and the rest of the milk into the butterscotch mix and heat until it thickens.
Let the mixture cool completely to room temperature.
Prepare the oreo cookies and pour into molds
Break the cookies into oreo crumbs. Make sure there are small and large cookie pieces too. If you use mini cookies, you could go with whole oreos too.
Pour the butterscotch mix into popsicles molds and mix crushed oreo cookies, and freeze overnight.
More popsicle recipes you’ll love
Recipe variations
- Peanut butter oreo popsicles – Add peanut butter to the custard base
- Biscoff oreo popsicles – Adding biscoff butter to custard base. Or you can also try my cookie butter and chocolate fudge pops recipe.
- Hazelut oreo popiscles – Add Nutella to the custard base.
- Feel free to add sprinkles or nuts to the custard base as well.
Recipe
Brown Butter Butterscotch Oreo Popsicles
US based cup, teaspoon, tablespoon measurements. Weight measurements are recommended for accurate results whenever available.
Common Measurement ConversionsIngredients:
- 150 g dark brown sugar ¾ cup
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 300 mL heavy cream 35% fat. 1 ¼ cup
- 400 mL milk 1⅔ cup
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 57 g butter ½ stick
- 56 g Oreo cookies with the filling in the middle removed
Instructions:
- Place the butter in a small saucepan and heat it slowly till it starts making bubbles and brown. Remove from the heat immediately as the milk solids start to get dark in colour, and pour it into a small bowl. Set aside to let the milk solids settle to the bottom of the bowl. See my guide here on how to make brown butter for more tips.57 g butter
- Remove about 2.5 tbsp of the melted butter from the top of this mix, being careful not to remove the toasted milk solids.
- Place the remaining butter with the toasted milk solids, salt, brown sugar and cream in a saucepan and heat on medium high heat till the sugar melts and the mix starts to boil (make sure to stir constantly in order to avoid the cream from settling on the bottom of the pan and burning).150 g dark brown sugar, 300 mL heavy cream, ½ tsp sea salt
- Reduce heat to medium and keep cooking the mixture until it thickens into a syrup like consistency (about 8 minutes depending on your stove – so keep an eye on it).
- Dissolve the cornstarch in 2 tbsp of the milk to make a slurry. Add the slurry back into the milk and add it all to the butterscotch mix and whisk well.400 mL milk, 1 tbsp cornstarch
- While stirring frequently, heat this for about 5-6 minutes until it thickens (not like pudding consistency though). Use a hand-held beater on low speed to emulsify the mix (optional – this is to make sure the butter really mixes in with the milk, but I have made it without this step as well).
- Let the mixture cool completely to room temperature. Place a plastic wrap on the surface to avoid a skin forming, or whisk it regularly to make sure the skin re-blends into the mix.
- Prepare the Oreos by breaking them into pieces. Make sure there are small pieces as well as some larger ones (you can use mini Oreos as well).56 g Oreo cookies
- Pour the cooled butterscotch mix into the pudding molds, just below the fill line and add some of the Oreo chunks into the mold as well. Use the back of a spoon or a skewer or a chopstick to disperse the cookies inside the butterscotch mix (optional – you can sprinkle some Oreo cookie crumbs right at the top as well), then insert the popsicle sticks. You should get about 8 popsicles.
- Let the popsicles freeze overnight.
- When you’re ready to eat, place the popsicles in lukewarm water for a few seconds to loosen the popsicle from the mold.
Nutrition Information:
“This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.”
Each batch of these oreo popsicles disappeared in two days, leaving us with a “maybe we shouldn’t be having this many popsicles” feeling. I think we might need help. I think an intervention might be in order.
I promise we’ll stop.
Ughh… maybe not.
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