Ingredient

Blondies

A blondie is not a brownie without chocolate — it is a butterscotch traybake, and its flavour comes from brown sugar and butter rather than from cocoa. Treat it as its own thing and it stops being disappointing.

Where the flavour comes from

Dark brown sugar is sugar with molasses still in it, and molasses is where the butterscotch, treacle and slight bitterness come from. Using caster sugar gives something sweet and characterless — this is the mistake most disappointing blondies make.

Browning the butter first is the second lever and it costs three minutes. Heat butter until the milk solids at the bottom turn nut-brown and it smells toasted, then let it cool slightly. The difference in the finished traybake is substantial.

A serious pinch of salt is the third. Butterscotch without salt is cloying; with it, it is one of the best things in baking.

It is worth being clear about what a blondie is not. It is not a brownie with the cocoa left out: a brownie gets part of its structure from melted chocolate, which sets firm as its cocoa butter recrystallises on cooling. A blondie has no such setting agent, so it relies entirely on sugar, egg and a modest amount of flour to hold together. That is why blondie batter looks wetter in the tin, why it takes longer to firm up, and why it is far less tolerant of being overbaked in an attempt to hurry that along.

The method

1. Brown the butter in a pale-bottomed pan so you can see the colour, then take it off the heat and let it cool for ten minutes.
2. Whisk in the dark brown sugar. The mixture will look grainy and oily; that is correct.
3. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until it comes together glossy.
4. Fold in the flour, salt and a little baking powder, stopping as soon as it is combined.
5. Fold in whatever you are adding — white chocolate, pecans, dark chocolate chunks — and scrape into a lined tin.
6. Bake at 180°C until the edges are set and lifted and the middle is only just firm. Like a brownie, err on the side of under.
7. Cool completely in the tin before cutting.

Additions worth making

• White chocolate is traditional and works because it is essentially more butterscotch.
• Pecans or walnuts, toasted first, for texture and to cut the sweetness.
• Dark chocolate chunks, which sound contradictory and are excellent — the bitterness balances everything.
• A swirl of tahini, peanut butter or salted caramel dragged through the batter before baking.
• Flaky sea salt scattered on top just before it goes into the oven.

Keeping it chewy

Melted butter, not creamed

Creaming aerates and makes it cakey. Blondies want density.

Minimal raising agent

A quarter-teaspoon at most. More and it becomes a traybake sponge.

An extra yolk

Replacing one whole egg with two yolks gives a noticeably fudgier result.

Underbake slightly

The middle should still wobble faintly. It sets as it cools.

Do not over-mix after the flour

Gluten development makes them tough and bready.

Common questions