Walnut Blondies Recipe. CCC Redux

Blondies: Are they, like bleached brownies?

Consider blondies the love child of brownies and chocolate chip cookies. I ask you: What’s not to love about that?

A couple weeks ago, I was baking chocolate chip cookies with kids in summer camp. Admittedly, our baking conditions were rudimentary, to say the least. Moreover, We needed to bake 48 cookies in a convection oven large enough to bake, say, 2 pans of 12 cookies. So, simple math, half the batter was in, half was out. What to do? I poured the remaining batter into the little tray with sides that goes into the convection oven. And, guys, it was fabulous. This is the one the kids wanted: The Blondie Bar.

Blondies will work very well with gluten-free flour as well.

Back home, even with all the oven room I needed, I tinkered with the recipe, to obtain a sort of cookie tart that would give me a more dramatic presentation that the humble cookie. I thought the amount of sweetness that worked so well for  Chocolate Chip Cookies  needed to be reduced for the perfect bar. So I cut the sugar by half and never looked back, left everything else exactly as is, folded toasted walnuts into the batter,  poured the batter into a tart pan, and waited impatiently for my blondies. Yum! Since my taste is always for a decidedly less sweet flavor, I greatly welcome the blondie variation.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar or Sucanat
• ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2½ cups flour: all-purpose, whole wheat pastry, or spelt. Gluten-Free OK
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½ cups semisweet chocolate chips, best quality
• ½ chopped toasted walnuts or pecans, optional (12 minutes in a 325 degree oven)

Instructions