Buttermilk Blondies
It's hard to beat blondies. Cake + chocolate chips. Buttery. Not quite as dense as brownies. Better crumb. Did I mention chocolate?
They may also have been the first brownies. That sort of culinary trivia is hard to decipher, so many competing claims without proper documentation--but it appears that the "original" recipes for these bar cookies were for what we now call "blondies." Later, cocoa was added, then the chocolate was melted, and so came about the brownie.
No matter. It's a great American treat. Especially with buttermilk. And one little secret Bruce threw in.
Here come the blondies.
First, position the rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325F (165C). Lightly butter a 9 x 13-inch (23 x 33-cm), high-sided baking pan, making sure to get the butter into the corners. Note the key words here: "high-sided." The cake's going to rise up in the pan--although Bruce will take care of that.
Whisk 2 2/3 cups (320 grams) all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon (4 grams) baking powder, 1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon (4 grams) salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Cream 16 tablespoons (2 sticks or 225 grams) unsalted butter, 1 1/4 cups (225 grams) packed light brown sugar, and 1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar in a large bowl with a mixer at medium speed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally with a rubber spatula. The mixture should be creamy and beige. Remember: you can't overbeat at this stage. And if you want to use turbinado sugar for all the sugar in the recipe, by all means do so.
Now beat in 3 large eggs, at room temperature, one at a time, making sure each is incorporated and smooth before adding the next. Beat in 1/2 cup (120 ml) regular or low-fat buttermilk and 1 tablespoon (15 ml) vanilla extract.
Turn off the beaters, dump in the flour mixture, and beat at very low speed just until most of the flour is dissolved. Remember: you CAN overbeat at this stage.
Scrape down and remove the beaters. Add 2 cups (360 grams) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips. Stir these in with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to make sure you don't stretch the wheat glutens any more than necessary. Less is more here--although the chips just need to be mixed thoroughly and evenly into the batter.
Use a rubber spatula to spread and smooth this batter into the prepared baking pan. You don't have to worry about being delicate with it. You can press down. You're going to do worse to it in a second.
Bake for 35 minutes. The cake will have risen up in the baking pan. Rap the pan several times against the baking rack in the oven. That's Bruce's trick: to make the blondies fall so they become denser, chewier--and better.
Continue baking until golden brown, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake come out with a few moist crumbs attached, about another 35 minutes. Cool the baking pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before cutting the blondies into squares. You can also turn the whole cake out onto a cutting board and cut it outside of the pan, to avoid scratching it.
That's about it. By the way, this is a recipe from THE ULTIMATE COOK BOOK, our 900 recipe tome (which you can find here).
Here's Bruce bringing a blondie into my study where I'm working. Hey, where's the glass of milk?
Mark Scarbrough | Posted on Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 8:54AM | in Cake, Chocolate, Desserts, Fabulously Empty Calories
Reader Comments (11)
great timing -- my girls were asking for more of these after their taste this week!
Oh yum. I think I love blondies even more than brownies. I have the ingredients in my kitchen right now. I'm sure I can exercise restraint and do the right thing and cut and freeze most of the batch after making it so as to not consume too much in the next few days... right? :) Thanks for the recipe- looks fantastic!
I made these! And they were such a hit, especially with our mate Boris the potato man at the markets! Fabulous recipe and even better cookbook (the ULTIMATE cookbook, no less!), just love it, thanks guys...
Do those ever look beautiful. Believe it or not, I don't think I've ever had a blondie. You have made me a convert...
I'm generally not crazy about Blondies. I'm more of a Brownie kinda girl. But I just want to say that I love your photograph with the butter and brown sugar in the mixer.
Hey, all. They freeze beautifully. Cut them in squares, wrap them up (maybe between sheets of wax or parchment paper), and squirrel them away. They'll thaw on the counter in an hour or so. And Denise: sorry you're not a blondie lover. Maybe you need to try them with buttermilk in the mix! (Although brownies are pretty fine things, too.)
M.
Okay - these were as delicious as they look. I baked them. And I took them to my knitting students last Wednesday night. They were demolished. Good thing Mark needed a picture of one for the blog or he wouldn't even have gotten a taste!
We just moved, and I will tell you that these blondies were my motivation for finishing unpacking the kitchen boxes to get to my mixer! They were worth the digging for that mixer! Honestly, they are awesome. Tender- that is the best word I can think of to describe them. Tender and awesome. Thank you for your recipe- your book is now going on my wish list for Christmas. :) I need to go cut and freeze these before they disappear.
Melissa: Thank you so much. You made my oatmeal-less morning.
M.
these are terrific, and there is no chance any would make it to the freezer in our house! we made another batch today -- such a hit the first time and we still had buttermilk. the first round, i used all turbinado sugar, and this round i used what i had left of that along with white sugar and the light brown the recipe calls for. i am so surprised that all of us could completely taste the difference and loved the first batch so much better! thanks for the insight of the differences between the sugars.
Amy: I do believe all that about taste/satiety--the research is just too convincing. And I think those less-refined sugars are the way to go for everything except the fussiest pastries and Frenchified confections. But I also have to say that they are very expensive--and so a bit of a hard sell in tough times. That said, they're worth every cent, when cents are to be had.
M.