Brownies and blondies: my go-to treat when I feel like baking and am too lazy to make cookies. So I made these blondies this weekend. Spectacularly moist, almost cake-like blondies, oozing with strawberry jam and the addition of peanut butter chips to up the PB quotient! Enjoy!
brownies
I was recently given a bottle of smoked maple syrup. Yes, I was skeptical as well, especially when I opened the bottle and it was really, really smokey. Hickory and Oak, but smoke, smoke, smoke. I thought long and hard about what I should experiment with, and ultimately, I think that it would go great simply poured over some BBQ ribs, but I thought that I would actually try it in a sweet application, so I came up with this recipe for blondies. And you know what? It worked and they are actually very good. The smoke flavor (and admittedly, I only used a few tablespoons) is really tempered by the toffee and maple and instead of it tasking like smoke, it simply has a deep, almost earthy thing going on. Really quite nice. Also, if you don’t want do the whole “smoke” thing, this recipe works just as well with regular maple syrup.
Chocolate? Check. Bourbon? Yep. Nuts? Sure, why not. Mix ’em all together and you get these lovely dessert bars that will rival any pie, but is much easier to eat(read: handheld). You could also skip the bourbon (but why would you want to?) and substitute walnuts for pecans. Any way you cut it, they are pretty awesome though.
So what do you make when you can’t decide whether you are more in the mood for brownies or more in the mood for cookies? Well, Brookies of course. Brownies on the bottom, and in this case *coconut* cookie dough on top, and just for good measure, a sprinkling of mini-chocolate chips. That should sort both cravings, I assume!