Blondies

Not mine; this is a stock photo, but WOW!

I don't much like baking cookies. I like making cookies because I like eating the raw dough. I don't enjoy portioning out sticky globs, standing around for 12 minutes, and then coaxing the cookies off the the baking sheet and onto a cooling rack. Sooooo very boring.

I really like making bar cookies, though. After mixing up the recipe, you get to smush the dough into one baking dish, put it in the oven, set the timer, and walk away for 40 minutes. Plus, the entire thing needs to cool once it comes out of the oven and that takes a couple more hours which gives you more than enough time to sit down with a book or whatever it is you do to relax. I had a friend ask me what I did to relax and when I said that reading relaxes me, he looked at me in disbelief. His idea of relaxation was skiing or mountain biking. To each their own; I'm sticking with my books.

Oh, and also? There is no such thing as a brownie blondie or a blondie brownie; it's one or the other. If the dessert is primarily chocolate and looks dark brown and tastes fudgy, it is a brownie. If the dessert is a light golden brown, it is a blondie. Maybe it's pedantic or nit-picky; I prefer definite definitions.

Ingredients:

3/4 c butter, melted

1 c brown sugar, packed

1/2 c granulated sugar

1 TBSP vanilla extract

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

2 c flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Optional: up to 1 1/2 c of any kind of nuts, candy pieces, chocolate bits, and/or dried fruits.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Grease the sides and bottom of a 9" by 13" glass baking dish and set aside.

Combine the melted butter and the two kinds of sugar; cream for two minutes til it looks pale. Add the vanilla, the whole egg, and the egg yolk. Beat together for an additional two minutes.

Add the dry ingredients and beat thoroughly. At this point, use a spatula to fold in whatever optional nuts, candy pieces, chocolate bits, and/or dried fruits you wish to include.

Transfer the dough to the prepared baking dish and use your hands to press the dough down evenly.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow the entire pan to cool on a wire cooling rack before cutting into squares. The recipe yields between two and three dozen cookies, depending on what size you want.

Cook's Notes:

1. Wire cooling racks. If you don't have any, why not? You can pick some up at your local dollar store and while they're not the highest quality, they get the job done and that job is to allow air to circulate around and under your baked goods so the don't steam and become soggy. I have a really nice cooling rack which is laid out in a small square pattern and it provides better support to more fragile baked goods. The cheaper racks generally consist of parallel wires and are better for cooling glass baking dishes and loaf pans. 
2. The original recipe from which this one as adapted, calls for those lovely mini Cadbury eggs that are only available at Easter. I'm not much of a candy-eater (candy-consumer? candy-devourer?) any more with two exceptions; those crunchy, chocolatey eggs and the milk chocolate Lindt balls. Those things are lusciously, meltingly evil. I digress. You can customize the blondies in any way you choose; white chocolate chips and craisins or M&Ms (plain or mint or peanut butter) or butterscotch chips or whatever.
3. Unlike many cookie recipes, this one calls for melted butter. Why not make beurre noisette? That's French for browned butter. Since it imparts a nutty flavor to baked goods, enhance that flavor with some toasted, chopped almonds, with chunks of high quality dark chocolate and maybe some chopped dried cherries.