This blondie recipe is simple and pretty much impossible to screw up. I don’t really try other blondie recipes (much), because this is all you need. It’s from Smitten Kitchen‘s blondies. If you check out the URL there, you can see “blondies-for-a-blondie,” which is what I used to type into Google whenever I wanted the recipe.

I’ve tried many things, but my standby with this recipe is to just throw in a bunch of chocolate chips or chopped up semi-sweet milk chocolate. In the pictures for this post, you can see I used chopped up chocolate – those smaller specks are the tinier bits I didn’t bother to throw out.

The blondie recipe is very fast and very easy. It tastes like a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie in one. You can also use these blondies, with some ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce to imitate Moxie’s White Chocolate Brownie dessert. I usually just dip my blondies in milk, like a chocolate chip cookie, because that’s how dreams are made. They’re basically gooier chocolate chip cookies.

Blondies Recipe

• 1 stick butter (melted)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 cup¬† flour
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

Directions

1. Mix melted butter and brown sugar. You don’t need an electronic mixer; use a fork and stir until smooth.
2. Add the egg and vanilla and mix.
3. Sift salt and flour together, then add this to the wet mixture. Throw in the chocolate chips or whatever ingredient you’d like.
4. Pour the batter into an 8×8 square bake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Err on the the side of underbaked. I pretty much take them out right at 20-21 minutes. (Though you have to add more time if you’re using a glass bake pan.)

Substitutions / Additions:

• Add 1/2 cup of walnuts, pecans, white chocolate chips, or anything, really, either in addition to or in place of the chocolate chips.
• Add in a mashed banana (and some walnuts).
• Add in a few tablespoons of peanut butter and some peanuts.
• Add a streusal topping.
• Throw on some mini chocolate chips and demerara sugar on top.

These blondies are pretty much a blank slate for anything you want to try. But I like ‘em simple.

I got this brownie recipe from Cookie Madness. My criteria when searching for this recipe was that it had to use an 8×8 or 9×9 pan, it had to be relatively simple or quick, and it couldn’t advertise itself as particularly “cakey.”

The recipe I used said to use pecans, but I used walnuts. I just sprinkled as many as seemed reasonable on top of one half of the brownie batter once the batter was in the bake pan, and just pressed down on ‘em a bit. The brownies also came out of the oven after 33 minutes, which is the minimum time in the recipe, because the gooier the better. Also, I used a microwave instead of a saucepan on low heat to do my butter and chocolate melting. I think I’ll save the saucepan for the fancy brownie recipe, when I want to spend more than 10 minutes in preparation. I changed the ratios, too, of the sweet vs. semi sweet chocolate, based on what was in my cupboard. There were certainly no complaints about too much sweetness, though. In fact the official verdict was, “Perfect,” so huzzah.

Simple Brownies Recipe

• 1 stick butter
• 3 oz semi sweet chocolate
• 1 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup well packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• Some walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8 or 9 inch square bake pan with non-stick foil.

2. Melt most of the butter in a microwave. Add in the chocolate, and continue melting, but take it out and stir it occasionally. Don’t melt it all the way in the microwave – there should still be a few small chunks of chocolate that will finish melting from the residual heat of the butter and the other melted chocolate. Let cool.

3. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl. Add in and mix salt, both sugars, and vanilla. Add and mix in chocolate. Fold in/mix in flour until just combined.

4. Pour batter into bake pan. Sprinkle walnuts or pecans on top if you want. I like to press down on them a bit so they don’t fall off the finished brownies.

5. Bake for 33-35 minutes, until the top just seems to start cracking. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

Cut into individual sized brownies, as small or as big as you want. But bigger brownies taste better.