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.

I know that making brown butter can be intimidating. Don't be scared, I will hold your hand the whole way through in my post and you'll be nailing it in no time: Brown Butter 101: The Ultimate Guide

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.

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.