I’m sitting here trying to think of what to say about blondies, and the only thing going through my head is Call Me on infinite repeat. (Is it stuck in your head, too, now? You’re welcome.)
Wait, that helped a little. While my mental sound track is on “Pause” I should tell you that blondies are similar to brownies, but without the chocolate. This version is not nearly as sweet as you would suspect from the amount of sugar in it. You can do them completely plain, with no nuts or chips or topping of any kind, or add: dark chocolate, white chocolate, butterscotch chips, caramel, walnuts, pecans. They’re a great blank canvas for you to add your own favorites.
Oh no, the song is fading in again …
Ingredients
1½ cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon fine salt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup dark bittersweet chocolate chips (optional, not shown)
Directions
Mixing
You’ll need two bowls for this, the first one large enough to hold everything with room left for mixing, the second one large enough for just the dry ingredients. Once you have everything together, preheat the oven to 375°.
Melt the butter. I used a glass measuring cup in the microwave. You can also use a small pan on the stovetop.
Put the brown sugar into the larger bowl and add the melted butter.
Mix thoroughly until there are no lumps.
Instead of getting a mixer dirty — or if you don’t have one — you can make do with a whisk, as long as it has a round handle. Check out this video for how. (If you can’t see the video in your email, come see it on the blog.
Set that bowl aside to cool to room temperature.
In the second bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda and whisk to combine.
Don’t try to whisk dry ingredients the same way you did the wet ones or it will go everywhere. The whisk should be going down along the inside of the bowl and come up out of the middle. Like this. (Again, if you can’t see the video in your email, come see it on the blog.)
Once the sugar / butter mixture is cooled to room temperature, add the eggs and vanilla and stir.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet a little bit at a time, stirring after each scoop until it is well combined. When it’s all added you should have a thick batter.
Not greasing the pan
Usually with blondies (and brownies) you flour a pan and pray that everything comes out without breaking up too much. Praying is fine, we can all use all the help we can get. But in this case there’s something more direct you can do to help yourself: Line the 9 x 13 dish with parchment paper.
Yes, this is actually wax paper. Parchment is better but this works, too. The big difference is that the wax paper will smoke a bit as it cooks. It’s disconcerting at first, but I have a couple of friends who have done this for years and it’s never caused any problems.
You might wonder about the wax melting and getting into the food. If you’ve ever covered leftovers with wax paper to reheat in the microwave, you’ve already had this happen. And if you’ve ever bitten into a nice shiny apple from the grocery store without scrubbing it first, you’ve eaten the same food grade wax as what’s on the paper. (Yes, grocery stores wax their fruit. You didn’t think cucumbers were that shiny in nature, did you?)
If you prefer, go ahead with the butter and flour routine.
So anyway … scoop the batter into the lined dish. It will be too thick to pour. You’ll have to manually spread it out to fill the dish evenly.
Bake at 375° for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Now is where you see the magic of the paper liner. Place a cooling rack upside-down on top of the baking dish and flip it over.
Then all you have to do is peel the paper off and let it cool.
When it has cooled for about 10 minutes, place a cutting board on top of the blondie and flip the whole thing over again.
As a bonus, you’ll have lines from the cooling rack that make it really easy to cut even pieces.
Serve by itself or, like my wife had it at a restaurant recently, topped with ice cream and caramel sauce. Or pretty much anything you want to top it with.
And that’s it.
Want more like this? For more recipes like this, that you can hold right in your hands, and write on, take notes, tear pages out if you want (Gosh, you're tough on books, aren't you?) you might be interested in How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, 2nd edition, Illustrated. Or to learn your way around the kitchen, check out Starting From Scratch: The Owner's Manual for Your Kitchen.
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38 Comments
I wanted to post a note and say THANK YOU for your site. I have a child allergic to dyes and have had to convert all of our eating habits to cooking from scratch (not that it was a bad idea to begin with). I have learned so much from your site and am very thankful that there are people out there willing to share their expertise so that families like mine can convert form those oh-so-fast boxed meals to delicious cooking-like-my-grandma style that I loved like a child.
I think I’ve only ever had a blondie once in my life, but that once was memorable! They’re fantastic! If I baked everything I really liked, I wouldn’t fit through the kitchen door! But, since I haven’t baked anything recently (except my strawberry-rhubarb pie), I just might indulge in a blondie!
Kris, avoiding dyes must be as hard for you as avoiding wheat for people with celiac. Nothing in a box or can is its natural color. (Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but not much.) I’m glad I can help out a little.
Barb, thanks for reminding me to look for rhubarb. I really want to give that a shot. Hey, you didn’t happen to take any pictures of yours, did you?
I harvested my rhubarb from my mom’s back yard. And I did take a finished picture of the whole pie because my crust was so pretty! The recipe I use is on the Tapioca box… simple! Except it doesn’t tell you how to prep your fruit… I slice my strawberries until I have 2 cups and then wash and cut my rhubarb into about 1″ pieces until I have 2 cups.
This is the second post I’ve read this afternoon about brownies/ blondies. I’ve got to make these! Thanks for the recipe. I’ve made brownies, but never blondies.
I love making blondies, these look so moist and tender, fantastic!
Hello, blondies. I must admit, I have a bias against blondies. It’s not their fault; it’s the fault of their full-on chocolate cousins. I’m just not that into them. I do try and think of them a butterscotch bars, thinking that might help, but, alas–no dice.
I do, however, have “Call Me” firmly stuck in my head now, so that’s something, anyway!
Tori and Bunny, are you going to add any chips? Chocolate, butterscotch, nuts, anything?
Jenni, they strike me as more like ridiculously thick chocolate chip cookie bars.
Blondies are nothing more than anemic brownies. And there is no point to brownies without chocolate.
Not that I have an opinion on this, or anything . . .
Kristin, that was really cool. You didn’t sound like a defensive brunette whose high school sweetheart was stolen by a blonde cheerleader at all.
Oh yeah, I went there.
(PS: For anyone else reading this, I have no idea if Kristin ever lost a boyfriend to a cheerleader.)
This is the blog that has it all… Cooking pictures and step by step by step… and HUMOR! Love it!
Is there a way to print the recipes without all the pictures?
The Blondie recipe would take 8 pages—I don't need the pictures, just the recipe.
thanks!
Paula, I've been thinking about how to automate that a little bit, so I don't have to write each recipe twice. Stay tuned, I might have something soon. Until then, do what I do: Sign up for the email subscription. When you open it, save as text, then open it in Notepad. You'll get all the text without the pictures.
They were a fun recipe to do. they were so yummy and everyone loved them they seemed to be gone in a second.
Emmy, just out of curiosity, did you add chocolate chips or nuts or anything?
We tried this a couple days ago. I don’t have a printer, so I had to hand write everything, and we actually added the dry with the wet, WITHOUT the eggs! I knew something didn’t look quite right.
But it came out okay, we used white chocolate chips and my parents said they liked it better then the store bought brownies we normally get.
Thank you for the recipe!
I love your website.
~Morgan
Morgan, better than brownies? I don’t know about that. Oh wait, better than store bought brownies. Yeah, I can see that. Glad you liked them.
These are fantassstic. Made them with semi-sweet chocolate chips. Very easy to make
I Made This Recipe & It Came Out Amazinq !!
Except I Didnt Have Light Brown Sugar Handy So I Just Made Them Wiith Dark Brown Sugar & Everybody Loved Them
I Served Them With Vanilla Ice Cream& Carmel Suace (The Smuckers Kind)
& Im only 13 But IM A Really Great Cook & Baker (:
Ohh & I Didnt Add Any Nuts Or CHoclate I Made Them Plain (:
Elisvellie, you might be my youngest commenter yet. I’m glad you found something you like.
These are in the oven right now! My first attempt at making blondies- added crushed pecans, white/chocolate morsels, and dark choc chips!
We love blondies at my house. We are allergic to corn and soy so have a very hard time finding a safe cocoa and chocolate chips are out of the question. If you can’t have brownies, blondies are definitely where it’s at. BTW, the food grade wax you are speaking of is made from GMO corn so we definitely don’t bite into an apple or cucumber from the grocery store and would sooner crawl a country mile than use wax paper.
I make my blondies in an ungreased glass baking dish and they come out just fine. Of course, we don’t care if they break up a little coming out of the pan and the pan has a lid so it is less work to just store them in the pan. I have a similar recipe on my blog about avoiding corn since it is easy to find corn-free versions of the ingredients (not so with some desserts) and they are often overlooked as a dessert option. We have recently discovered a corn-free cocoa (raw cacao powder) so we have had brownies, but we still make blondies half the time. Love your blog.
KC, my first thought was, “But Ghirardelli doesn’t have that, does it?” So I checked the bag: “Soy Lecithin-an Emulsifier” Well how about that.
One good thing about food allergies (yes, looking for the silver lining) is that you probably end up with a lot more high-end products that are minimally processed.
We do eat better than anyone else I know since everything must be made from scratch and only the highest quality staples, meat, dairy and produce are actually corn-free. It’s also made us much more adventurous with food since it is easier to find corn and soy free ingredients at ethnic markets and recipes from other cultures (where subsidized corn and soy don’t drive the economy). Actually, the title of your blog is how I found you since I must cook like my grandmother like all the other corn allergy sufferers that I know. It is amazing how difficult it is to find American recipes without evaporated milk, cream of whatever soup, bouillon cubes or bisquick. Keep up the good work.
That’s one part of my audience that I didn’t expect when I started writing about food. But yes, anyone with food allergies is much more likely to cook from scratch.
hey Drew! these have been calling me for a week now and i finally gave in and made them again. ohhhh.. so heavenly!
Just curious, did you go with or without chocolate chips?
choco chips AND butterscotch chips! whooot! they were fabulous. however, i got cheap and didnt buy top shelf vanilla… so lesson learned, and will buy the good stuff next time.
I just made these with white chocolate chips and walnuts. It was my first time making blondies and they turned out great! This was also my first recipe to try from your blog, I just found it yesterday while looking for a brownie recipe, and I will definitely be trying out more of your recipes! Thanks
Awsome recipe!
I love blondies, usually buy them at local IGA. Just realized looking at your recipe that i can make double the blondies for less money! I’m also amazed at how simple the recipe is the only option i would add would be finely chopped pecans. Thanks for the recipe.
hellop i tried this recipe and every thing went well until it came to baking. the wax paper wasnt at all ok. the pan almost popped in the stove if my daughter hadnt smelled something. but thank you anyway
Ooh, that’s not good. What kind of pan were you using? I’d like to try to figure out what went wrong and that’s the first thing I can think of.
Holy schamole!!!! what an awesome recipe! I made these for me and my husband last night. I normally make blondies from a box ( hangs head in shame ) and I wanted to try to make them from scratch. I came across your website and all I could think of was, holy crap these look so good and I can totally do this.
I tried and…… was greatly rewarded, not only with my abilty to do it, but they taste extrodinary! They literaly melted in my mouth. Now just to let you know I added white chocolate chips and chopped macedemea nuts. Yum yum yum. Thank you thank you thank you. Hope all is well and keep up the good work. Oh and I also tried your chicken soup, my husband came down with a cold, again amazing.
yay im 13 and this was my first EVER baking lesson or whatever!
they turned out great! but soo much stirring i had a bruised wrist afterwards.
but sooooooooo worth it!
Yeah, the stirring is the least fun part. But it was totally worth it, wasn’t it?
Making these ASAP! Like as soon as I send this message LOL. I hope that they are as good as they look. I have never heard of you until google brought you up when I searched for a recipe for blondies…..but I am glad to have found your site……keep it up.