Y’all, I am officially a recipe creator! I took elements from two recipes to create what I think are the best blondies. And they are a perfect snack on an endlessly rainy California weekend. And I’ve got a bit of equipment advice to make them even better!
I must admit that I do get a little bored with long recipe intros. So I won’t preface this recipe with a story about how my grandmother made these for me when I was little (she didn’t). Or how these blondies got me through a tough break-up (also not true.) But they did give me a nice treat on a rainy afternoon.
Well, actually I suppose there is a short story related to these blondies. Because shortly after I took them out of the pan to cool, I returned to the kitchen to find the following…
So I’m naming my first recipe after him! These are the best blondies, as certified by Cheddar, namely because they are not too sweet, a bit more salty, and use melted butter, rather than creamed butter. Frankly, melting butter is a lot faster and easier!
Cheddar’s Best Blondies
Inspired by King Arthur Flour and Barefoot Contessa
- 1/2 lb (2 sticks) of butter
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3 large eggs
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees
- Grease a 9″x13″ pan
- Melt the butter over medium heat
- Stir in brown and granulated sugars until they have dissolved. Set aside for 10 min to cool
- Mix in three eggs with the butter/sugar mixture. Add the vanilla
- In a large bowl, mix the flour with the baking soda and salt
- Stir the butter/sugar/egg mixture into the flour; mix well
- Add the chocolate chips and walnut pieces
- Pour the mixture into the prepared pan
- Bake for 30 minutes
- Cool and cut into pieces
- Leave a large chunk close enough to the counter’s edge for your dog (just kidding!)
A few things you might need to pick up
I was inspired to create this recipe after reading a blog post on the King Arthur Flour website. They highlighted a Detroit-style pizza pan- and I am a huge pan of deep dish pizza. But I’m not buying a new piece of bakeware unless I can make multiple items in it. Luckily, the best blondies have crisp edges and are golden brown- just like pizza! A match made in heaven.
LloydPans 10×14 Detroit-style pizza pan
And there are a couple of things that I always buy from Amazon- walnuts and vanilla- that play starring roles in my best blondies recipe. I just reordered them both in fact. The Nielsen-Massey vanilla was the brand we sold at Williams-Sonoma when I worked there. At the time, it was hard to find, but now it’s just a click away.
Happy Belly California walnuts
Enjoy my first official recipe! You can be assured that Cheddar did 🙂
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