sweet little cookie

Tonight we had a feast of a dinner, and finished it off with a pan of these babies.  The recipe calls them Blondies.  Some people are apparently very fond of their Blondies.  I'm not sure what exactly makes them blond?  Are they brownies minus the cocoa?  I added enough chocolate to mine that they certainly had a fair amount of brown going on.  I'll tell you what though, they were tasty.  And easy.  You get to MELT the butter.  No forgetting to set the butter out, or worse yet trying to get room temperature butter in the microwave (guilty--often!).  

We managed to eat just a few (ok, so the above picture may tell another story), so the rest are going in the freezer.  I love frozen bar cookies, and I hope it will help us with portion control.  A girl can dream, right?  

Anyway here's the basic overview:

Melt your butter, add brown sugar

Mix in eggs and vanilla.  Then add flour.

Finally mix in chocolate chips, nuts, and whatever else strikes your fancy-pants self!

Pour it into a pan and bake it up.  Simple simple simple.  Possibly impossible to mess up.

Yummy yummy.  Enjoy!

 Blondies
adapted from How to Cook Everything
(note:  I doubled the original recipe in order to make a 9x13 inch pan, you can make a half batch in an 8x8)


2 sticks butter, melted
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
Pinch salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2-ish cups each chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and white chocolate chips
1 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped.

1. Mix melted butter with brown sugar – beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla.
2. Add salt, stir in flour. Mix in chocolate chips and nuts.
3. Pour into pan. Bake at 350°F 30-35 minutes, or until set in the middle. I baked mine for about 32 minutes, and I ended up thinking they were a bit underdone.  But as my guests reminded me, everyone loves doughy cookies!  

In his original recipe, Bittman gives lots of suggestions of other possible additions.  I think these would be fantastic with dried cherries and dark chocolate chunks and maybe some flaked coconut.  Espresso powder would also be lovely, as would some booze.  Yum.  Hard to go wrong, really!  Now go whip yourself up a batch!  They only take about 10 minutes to get into the oven as long as you're not trying to take pictures of your work!