Have you ever woken up in the morning and asked yourself, ‘What’s the best thing I’m going to do today?’ On a good day, the best thing I usually do is brush my hair or make sure my dog goes outside. But today was different.
Today, I made Blondies.
What are blondies, you ask?
A blondie is a delicious, heavenly dessert bar. They’re like a brownie, but instead of a chocolate batter, it’s more like a cookie or a vanilla batter. Blonde brownies. Duh.
If you haven’t had a blondie before, well, dang, come on over to my place, y’all! Seriously. I love baking, but I hate having it around my house because my fiancée doesn’t eat sweets nearly as fast as I do, and thus, I eat all of it. ALL. OF. IT.
This was a particular special baking adventure for me, because I went in with the premise of baking with only ingredients I had on hand. This is part of a bigger goal of mine, which is reducing food waste. If there’s one thing I hate more than Paul Giamatti, it’s throwing away food. A lot of people hate throwing it away because they feel like they are throwing away money. Yes, this is true. However, there are ethical and environmental repercussions that are for more serious. Thus, challenging yourself to cook with everything you got (literally), is a great way to help reduce waste. At The Chopping Block, we work with Zero Percent to donate our leftover food. It's a win-win for everyone!
Enough of the PSA (but seriously, go to those links!), these blondies are boss. It was an easy recipe, and it took only a few minutes. Full disclosure, I made a pretty big switcheroo…. I used oil instead of butter.
Yup. I did it. Guess what? It turned out just fine. They shrunk a little, but they were delicious! I guessed the ratio to be about ¾ cups of oil for every one cup of butter. I also added more butterscotch chips because I liked to pretend it was a rum punch I was mixing. Oh, and like a good woman, I put some sea salt on it. By the way, everyone is so ‘salted caramel this’ and ‘salted caramel that,’ these days. Personally, I’m all like, ‘Put it on my butterscotch.’ But I’d rather have people be hip to salted caramel than red velvet, right? Get over that phase, people! Let it die with Shelby and that armadillo!*
So here’s the recipe, my friends! Use it, but more importantly, just try and make something with the food you have this week. Who knows what you’ll come up with?
*If you get this reference, please let me know in the comments below.
Basic Blondie Recipe
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
- Combine butter with sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
- Add baking powder and flour and mix until combined. Fold in chips.
- Spread into a greased or lined 9x9 pan and bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes until brown. Let cool before cutting into 16 small or 9 large squares.
If you like making desserts like this, you'll love our Cupcake Boot Camp coming up at the end of the month which features Fudge Brownie Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Ganache. So, you'll get your brownie fix, too!
These Blondies would make a great dessert for a summer picnic because you can transport them in the lightweight pan you bake them in. For more tips on hosting a perfect picnic, download our new free guide.
