Brown Butter Blondies

So brownies are ... nice. I actually prefer cookies. How about you? I'm not a huge brownie/ blondies fan. Blondies are just brownies with chocolate. I prefer blondies to brownies though. This was just delicious. I read this in a Bon Appetit magazine.This is now my effort to make all the recipes that I've bookmarked over the years. Please bear with me! :)

My kids made these. They are super easy to make. 

Brown Butter Blondies
(recipe originally from Bon Appetit)

  
For the Brown Butter:
1/2 cup Butter
1 Egg
3/4 cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 tsp Salt
1/3 cup All-Purpose Flour

 For the Blondie:

1 cup Butter, softened
2 1/4 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp Salt
1 3/4 cup Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

 

Make the Brown Butter Mixture:

 

Melt the butter in a saucepan, over medium heat, stir often until the butter foams and the butter browns, about 5-8 minutes. Let cool slightly. 

 

Add the egg, vanilla, salt and brown sugar. Beat the mixture until smooth, about 3 minutes. Fold in the flour gently. 

 

Make the Blondies:

 

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C. 

 

Whisk together the dry ingredients: 2 1/4 cups flour, the salt and the baking powder.  In a separate bowl, using an electric mixer, cream 1 cup butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until combined, and pale and fluffy. Mix in vanilla. 

Mix in dry ingredients until completely combined. 

Pour in half the blondie mixture into a buttered 13" by 9" baking dish. Smooth the top. Add the brown butter mixture as a layer on the top and smooth it out. Next add the remaining blondie mixture on top of the brown butter mixture. 

Bake until golden brown, about 30-35 minutes. Allow to cool. 

 

 

Pasta with Brown Butter Sauce

Have you made brown butter? Don't think about the calories for once and go make this sauce. It's one of the best things you would've done. And you can always just smell, taste and then feed your hungry family, friends and neighbors. And let me tell you, they'll come asking when they smell that sauce.

Brown butter is exactly what it sounds like. You cook the butter down until it turns brown and caramel-ly and nutty and sweet and well...It's taking butter to a whole new level.

Well, try this recipe and you won't be sorry. It's a No Regret Move, as the consultants say.

Pasta with Brown Butter Sauce
(Recipe from Saveur)

8 oz Pasta, any kind will do. I used bucatini.
1 cup Butter (I know. It's not for the faint of heart, but trust me)
3/4 cup Pine nuts
4 Eggs
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese
Salt and Freshly ground Pepper, to taste

Cook the pasta until al dente and keep aside, reserving about half a cup of the pasta water as well.

Melt the butter on low-medium heat in a large pan. Add the pine nuts and stir until they turn golden brown. Remove the nuts with a slotted spoon. Now crack the eggs 1 or 2 at a time into the pan. Keep scooping the butter over the eggs until cooked. The recipe calls for fried eggs with a runny yolk, but I'm super scared of the infections that uncooked eggs can bring in India, so I turned it over and cooked it through. (Though I can just imagine that the runny yolk mixing in with the brown butter and coating the pasta must be just amazing).

Carefully remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and keep covered, and warm.

Now add the pasta, half the pine nuts and all the reserved pasta water. Toss to combine and heat pasta. Ladle the pasta into serving bowls, top with a fried egg, a sprinkle of the remaining pine nuts and some Parmesan. Garnish with freshly ground black pepper.