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. 

 

 

Nutella Brownies

There's absolutely nothing to say about these brownies except that they are in one word Un-Friggin-Believable! I am on a cookie/ brownie cooking spree of my bookmarks.

I have also been keeping my daughter occupied during her holidays. And today I made these with my nephew - he's so enthusiastic and excited about cooking - so let me just say they tasted even better!

I made a few alterations to the original recipe. My nephew doesn't like peanut butter, so we substituted 1/2 cup Nutella for the peanut butter - so now we have 1 cup instead of 1/2 cup nutella. And the chocolate chips were added on as a topping, but we mixed it right into the
batter.


Nutella Brownies
(recipe from Noble Pig, and originally from Culinary in the Country)

1 cup Butter
2 cups Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
4 large Eggs
1 cup All-Purpose Flour
3/4 cup Cocoa
1/8 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 cup Nutella
1/4 cup Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C.

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

On a low heat, melt the butter and add in the sugar and vanilla while stirring to combine. Remove from heat and cool completely. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well to combine after each addition.

Add the flour mixture, a bit at a time, to the egg mixture until completely mixed in.

Heat the nutella in the microwave for a little bit until you get it to a runny consistency. Add the nutella to the batter and mix well. Now add the chocolate chips and mix to combine.

Pour into a square baking pan and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely before cutting. We couldn't wait and that was a mistake. Parts of it were still warm and so a little like melted chocolate in the center (sigh - can't go wrong with some molten chocolate, can you?!). It did eventually all firm up. And the kids walloped it with some strawberry ice cream (I would've chosen vanilla, but hey, it's all for the kids!).

As I said before Un-Friggin-Believable. Truly Death By Chocolate!! And what a good way to go!

Sara's Brownies

A dear friend, Sara, recently had a baby. She had gestational diabetes which meant she couldn't have any sugar for over 8 months, while she was pregnant. When I went to visit her and her beautiful baby, she had baked up a storm of brownies and cakes!


I begged her for her brownie recipe and made it on the weekend. It was ooey, gooey and completely decadent. She couldn't find baking chocolate and had substituted the cocoa and butter mixture.


Sara's Brownies

4 Eggs
A pinch of salt
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 cups Caster Sugar
1 cup All-Purpose Flour + 1/4 tsp Baking Powder, sifted together
12 tbsp Cocoa, sifted + 4 tbsp Butter
1/2 cup Butter
100 g Walnuts

Preheat oven to 180 deg C.

Beat the eggs, salt, vanilla together. Add the cocoa and 4 tbsp butter and beat together. Now mix in the rest of the butter and beat well.

Fold in sugar, flour and baking powder and walnuts. Pour the entire thing into a buttered tray and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Brownies

How would you describe a perfect brownie? Chewy, chocolate-y and scrumptious? Then I've found THE perfect brownie at Cooking with Amy. In her words:

In my preferred purist version I don't want them too dense and fudgy and I don't want them too cakey and fluffy.

I couldn't have said it better. I wanted a chewy cocoa brownie.


Perfect Brownies Every Time
(adapted from here)

1/2 cup Butter, melted
3/4 cup Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
1 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
6 tbsp Cocoa
2 tbsp Oil
2 tsp Vanilla Essence

Preheat oven to 180 deg C.

Beat sugar and butter together until well blended and then add the eggs, one at a time. Beat well after each addition until the mixture looks smooth.

Now add the cocoa powder, vanilla essence and the oil. Mix well.

Mix the flour and the salt together. Add about 1/4 cup of the flour mixture at a time and mix well after each addition. At this point you could add about 1/2 a cup of chopped walnuts, but thats optional, and I personally want just the plain fabulous brownie.

Pour the mixture into a greased pan and bake for 20 minutes or so. Remove from oven and let it cool completely for 10 minutes. Slice into squares and serve warm with ice cream.


Life doesn't get much better than this.

Thank you, Amy. My friends and family thank you as well (can you hear the applause and cheers? :-) )