Basic Blondies

Another coworker birthday means another opportunity for baking! And now that Lent is over, I can return to eating the wheat I gave up for a whole 40 days!

While there are so many options both for wheat-based treats and for birthday treats in general, I decided to go with a traditional "blondie," knowing that my coworker has baked these herself before and thus hoping they would be something she enjoyed eating as well.

For those unfamiliar with the term "blondie," it's basically meant to be a brownie-type dessert, but without the chocolate. The end result of these squares is actually a blonde-ish color as well, instead of the traditional brownie "brown." The taste, however, is really similar to the taste of a chocolate chip cookie--just in bar form.

You can add nuts, frosting, or change it up to make this dessert as exotic or customized as you like, but to avoid nut allergies and to have the blondies finished in time before I had to leave for work, I kept this one simple.

Starting with Rosina's Brown Sugar Brownies recipe on Allrecipes.com, I continued to customize the flour, chocolate chips and baking time to meet my needs. The final Basic Blondies product did indeed receive rave reviews from the birthday girl, my fellow coworkers, and my family members who got to try the last few bits before the whole batch was gone!

Ingredients

1 and 1/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup nondairy chocolate chips (brand: Chocolate Dream)

Directions

1.) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 9x9-inch square pan with nonstick cooking spray. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt, sifting each ingredient.

2.) In a separate bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla, beating thoroughly. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until the dough comes together.

3.) Fold the chocolate chips into the batter until they're evenly distributed. Then pour the batter into your prepared pan (it will be a bit of a thick dough) and spread flat and even so it fills all the corners.

4.) Bake the blondies for about 20-25 minutes, keeping an eye on them toward the end so they brown but don't burn. (Mine started to get a little too brown on the edges after 24 minutes, but I was able to slice that part off without damaging the rest of the bars). Cool the blondies just slightly before cutting into squares or rectangles and serving while still warm.

Quick, easy, tasty, and a little fancier than just a regular cookie, these blondies are a great way to impress your friends or whip up a treat for yourself! And don't forget you can use the base dough with whatever additions you prefer to turn these blondies into the perfect bar for anyone! Next time I might try some of my favorite combinations, like pecans and maple syrup, or maybe coconut and banana chips, or even just make them plain! (Brown sugar is one of my favorites all by itself). Happy Experimenting!