Chewy Brown Butter Blondies

Hi hi! I am just popping in here to share this easy blondie recipe with you! I have a ton of brownie recipes on my site, but haven't gotten around to sharing a blondie recipe with you yet, so here we are!

These blondies are super easy to make. I riffed off of my white chocolate chip cookie recipe, and then adjusted from there to get the texture and finish that I wanted. I had to go through a few recipe tweaks to get them just where I wanted them, but we got there in the end - a perfectly buttery blondie, filled with brown butter flavour and packed full of white chocolate chips. It's slightly fudgy in the middle, and just so delicous.

What are Blondies?

A blondie is a 'blond brownie', so instead of having a chocolate flavour, it is more of a brown sugar, vanilla, butter forward situation.

To me, a blondie is honestly super similar to a cookie bar in that they have the same method. It's a six of one, half a dozen of the other kind of a thing as far as I'm concerned. If you look at my chocolate chip cookie bars recipe you'll see that they are super similar. I'm always down for more delicious bar recipes though, especially when they are this easy, so I'm certainly not complaining.

For these blondies I wanted to really drive home the taste of brown butter and brown sugar which gives almost a butterscotch kind of taste. You get a bit of a crackly top from whipping the sugar and eggs together, and only just baking them gives the most amazing dense and fudgy inside. Just try them. It's worth it.

Tips and tricks for the best blondies

While these blondies are super easy to make, there are a few tips and tricks for the best outcome possible.

• Brown the butter. When possible, I almost always brown the butter, especially in situations like these blondies where you're not adding cocoa powder or melted chocolate, so you really want a great depth of flavour. I tried adding milk powder the brown butter to really amp up the flavour like I did in my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, but found it affected the texture quite a lot.
• Don't over mix. When you are mixing up your blondie batter, make sure you don't over mix it. Mix in the dry ingredients until they are just combined, then add your chocolate and finish off mixing to combine. Mixing too much will start to develop gluten, which can make them a little tough.
• Use good chocolate. Good quality is the aim of the game here. Use a chocolate that you would be happy eating. I used a caramelised white chocolate (I used Whittaker's blondie), but chopped white chocolate of your choosing would be great.
• Don't overbake. This is crucial for a nice fudgy, dense, blondie. You want to make sure that you don't overbake them. If anything, slightly underbaking them is best. You want to pull them from the oven when the top of the blondie is set and the edges are just starting to firm up.

How do you get the crinkly top on blondies?

The crinkly top that comes on a lot of brownie recipes can be achieved here too. I go in depth on this in my homemade brownies post but it comes down to really whipping together the butter and sugar and egg mixture so that the sugar starts to dissolve.

In the blondies in the pictures I didn't quite get the crinkly top that I was after because it was the middle of winter and I was baking them in my garage while we were renovating, so in the time I stopped to take a few pictures my butter had cooled a bit. But if you want that nice crinkly top, make sure that you really whip the butter, egg, and sugar together in the first step of the recipe. I usually do it by hand with a whisk but if you would like to use an electric hand mixer that's fine too.

White Chocolate Blondies

These are white chocolate blondies, but you can easily replace the white chocolate with dark chocolate or the chocolate of your liking if you want. I used a caramelised white chocolate which means that the white chocolate has been slowly cooked, causing it to caramelise.

Caramelised white chocolate has a similar flavour profile to regular white chocolate, but is a bit more toasty. It's one of my favourites to bake with if i'm making something using white chocolate - it's a straight swap. If you can't get hold of a caramelised white chocolate, just use regular white chocolate.

• Higher quality. Chocolate chips aren't always made with the best quality chocolate, and to me, if you're taking the time to make something from scratch, you want to use good ingredients if you can access them. Use a chocolate you would be happy eating on its own.
• Range of size. When you chop chocolate you get a range of different sizes - some chunks, some small chunks, and then little chocolate shards. The little shards melt into the blondie and the chunks stay bigger, giving amazing texture and taste to the blondies.
• Nice melty puddles. Chocolate chips often have stabilisers in them which mean that they hold their shape in the blondies or cookies. This works well for some things, but I much prefer using chopped chocolate as it melts down nicely and you get delicious pockets of chocolate.

How to add White chocolate to the tops of blondies

I love a chocolate puddle and when I am making my chocolate chip cookies, I often press lots of chocolate onto the tops of the cookies before baking them so that you end up with delicious chocolate puddles on the tops.

This works for making cookie bars using dark chocolate such as for my chocolate chip cookie bars, but because white chocolate is made slightly differently to dark, I find that if you add white chocolate to the tops of the blondies before baking, it will burn.

The best way around this is to chop a little extra chocolate, and sprinkle it onto the blondies just after they come out of the oven. The residual heat will melt it, and the chocolate won't burn.

Alternatively just leave the tops of your blondies plain!

How to get a nice clean cut on blondies

I get asked this all the time - how I get a nice clean cut on my baked goods, especially my brownies.

The main trick is to make sure the blondies are fully cooled - if I'm taking photos for the internet I will put them into the fridge (I know, the scandal), so that they are nice and solid to cut up. I don't usually do this if I'm just making them to have at home because I prefer a blondie at room temperature rather than chilled like I do a brownie (IYKYK).

The second trick is to use a super sharp knife. Be decisive with your cuts, and wipe the blade in between cuts. I often use a ruler to measure them if I'm shooting them for the internet, you definitely do not need to worry about that if you're not.

Frequently Asked Questions

What tools and equipment do you use?
You can find a full list of the tools and equipment I use on my products page

Which pan did you use?
I made these in an 8" nonstick pan. I like to line the pan with parchment paper extending over the sides so that it is easy to remove the cooled blondies.

Can I add nuts / mix ins?
Yes, add whatever you like! Toasted macadamias would be delicious, or pecans, or whatever you are feeling. This recipe is super forgiving so I would switch out some of the chocolate in the recipe with the mix-in that you are wanting to add.