Blondies by Brunetties

The goal of this semester: bake and post.  bake and post.  bake and post.  And of course I suppose there will be some (why do I even kid myself, LOTS) of studying in between.  My darling friend and fellow baking and blog-reading enthusiast, Brenna, has agreed to embark with me on weekly (this is optimistic, but we're going with it) baking adventures.  And what puts the cherry on top of these adventures?  We have a very receptive weekly food-consuming bunch: lab people at lab meetings.  Not only will we relieve our own stress by baking, we will also make the lab-ers smile each week...and if all goes according to plan, with no baking flaws, we will become very popular.  Evil plan?  no.  How could anyone say cookies are evil?

Ok so I just have to post this somewhere so that I don't forget in my old age.  The day Brenna and I were going to make these blondies, there was a real fire emergency in the kitchen on the floor below me.  Some not-so-kitchen-savvy-student set his/her dishtowel on fire.  Simply put, the dorm smelled like burnt sugar (why the flaming towel smelled like burnt sugar I will always wonder), and we were stranded outside for thirty minutes as the lovely firepeople came to save us from the burning dishtowel.

We did not let this deter us from baking that day!  To escape the smell and any bad karma/chi/energy lurking in the kitchen below me, we tried out the kitchen on the other side of the building.  What a discovery!  It was more than 50% bigger than the kitchen below me!  The downside: it is rather far, and it is no fun to carry pots, baking sheets, ingredients, etc. all that way...and even worse if you forget something.  Always good to know we have an excellent backup though!

These blondies were made for our lovely blondie Emma (her 20th birthday)...and for the lab meeting.  The original recipe called for Heath Bar Crumbles, which normally (or so we thought) are not so hard to find.  Unfortunately, the Heath Bar does not seem to be Mr. Popular in the candy aisle and even less so in the baking/crumble aisle.  After going to at least five different stores in search of these crumbles, Brenna finally found a bag of mini Heath Bars (now, why would they have these and not the normal bars or crumbles?).  Her method to smash them into bits: a glass jar filled with loose leaf tea.

Brown Butter Toffee Blondies
(adapted from Eat, Live, Run)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter
• 2 cups packed light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• scant 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 heaping cup smashed Heath Bar 
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and lightly butter two muffin tins (24 muffins total).
2. Brown the butter by cooking it over medium-low heat until brown.  Swirl very often and don't let it burn!  This will take a couple of minutes.
3. Put your brown sugar in a large bowl.  Pour the browned butter on top and then beat with a handheld mixer or stand mixer for about 4 minutes.
4. Add the eggs and beat again for a minute or two.
5. Add the salt, vanilla, and flour and beat until just combined.
6. Fold in the Heath Bar bits and walnuts.
7. Divide the dough among the muffin tins.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes until a toothpick or knife comes out clean.

Ready for action.

Butter: yellow.

Butter: brown.

Call the dentist.  Now.

Beating beating....

After the eggs have been beaten in.

Flour has been added...looks more like cookie dough now!

All the yummy crunchy bits...

...folded in.

Pre-bake.

Post-bake.

Pre-eat.  Birthday "display" for Emma. 

Pre-eat...still...how?  (well...we had already sampled one to make sure they weren't poisonous)

No post-eat picture.  Obviously, since there would be nothing to photograph except my tummy.

Another baking adventure coming up...another birthday, another lab meeting!