Blondies
Hubby and I decided to send baked goods to our moms on Mother’s Day this year. Of course I was happy to help. I wanted to make something that would travel well and (of course) something I’ve never made. Since we were preparing for our kitchen renovation at the time, I also wanted to use up some of the random half bags of cookie mix ins.
Blondies fit my requirements perfectly. This blondie recipe is pretty well known. I made one batch with just dark chocolate M&Ms and another batch with some white chocolate chips, toffee bits, and chopped walnuts. Both batches turned out great and the one with the white chips turned out better than I expected. That combination of mix-ins tasted like butterscotch.
Blondies – from Blonde Ambition in the Kitchen
6-7 TBS butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder (optional, creates lighter blondie texture)
“Add in” (see below)
Preheat oven to 350.
Line an 8×8 pan with foil and lightly spray with PAM.
In a large microwave safe mixing bowl melt the butter. Allow to cool for 5 mintues. Mix the brown sugar with the melted butter and beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla. Add salt, stir in flour and baking powder (if using). Mix in any additions (some ideas below).
Pour into prepared pan and use a greased spatula to evenly spread mixture in pan and level the top. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until set in the middle. (I baked for 22 minutes)Cool on rack before cutting.
Add in ideas:
1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, white chocolate or butterscotch chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans, walnuts, almonds
1/2 cup M&M candies1/2 chopped Reese’s PB cups
1/4 cup toffee pieces
1/2 tsp mint extract in addition to, or in the place of vanilla extract
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I’d love to have one of those for breakfast right about now 🙂 Can’t wait to see what else is in store this week!
These look amazing and delicious! I have never made bars, but I love eating them! I can’t wait to see the rest of your recipes, and I’m sure they will inspire me to make some bars of my own 🙂
These look great! They’ve got a little bit of everything.
Yummm. I’m excited to see what else you post this week – I always make bars instead of individual cookies, so much easier!
Those bars will always have a special place in my heart, because that’s what I debuted my blog’s new look with! Plus… they are just insanely delicious!
Looks great!
I can’t even begin to tell you what I’d give for one of those right now!
Those look delicious and definitely something my hubby would love. I’ve been in a baking funk lately and will have to try these this week.
On another note…since you’ve changed your blog around a bit, it’s taking a very long time to load. Is it just me that’s having this problem?
Thanks for letting me know Kelly. I haven’t heard that from anyone else. I use Google Chrome and it doesn’t seem to have any issues, but I’ll definitely look in to it.
These were great using up all the random baking goods in my kitchen. Wonderful recipe!