White Chocolate Blondies

Making ‘Blondies’ have been on my list to make as I wanted to bake a sweet treat for our picnics. We have been lucky recently as the weather has been quite warm for us so I wanted to make something that wouldn’t melt easily!

I would describe ‘Blondies’ like a cake/brownie! The texture is thicker than a brownie like a cake and inside is still soft which is like a brownie! You have to try out the recipe to see what I mean! So, what’s the difference between a blondie and brownie then? Blondie is made without chocolate being the main ingredient. Brownies are made with chocolate or cocoa powder. The typical blondie is made with white chocolate chips but you can add other ingredients such as nuts, dried fruits or milk/dark chocolate chips etc or simply have it plain!

This recipe was really simple, I think it took longer to measure out all the the ingredients than to actually make it! This recipe was from Deliciously Sprinkled blog and the instructions are very clear, I love it with pictures as well. I had to convert some of the measurements for the ingredients as she used ‘Cups’ as I normally weigh my ingredients in ‘Grams’. Please find below the converted version for your reference and I have tweaked the sugar intake as it is pretty sweet already with the white chocolate chips!

Ingredients: 280g plain flour, 1 x tsp of bicarbonate of soda, half tsp of salt, 170g soft butter, 80g granulated sugar, 80g light brown sugar, 1 x tbsp vanilla extract, 2 x eggs and 200g white chocolate chips.

Method:

1. Preheat over to GM 4 and line your square baking tin with baking paper. Whisk the dry ingredients – flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl and set aside.
2. Cream the butter and sugar and vanilla extract until well combined. Add the eggs one by one and mix altogether in your mixer.
3. Add the flour until the mixture is just combined. Don’t over mix it because the texture would be heavy. Stir your chocolate chips or any other flavourings.
4. Press into your tin and spread evenly. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes until it looks golden at the top. The texture should be abit hard at the top and slightly gooey inside. Then, leave to cool in the tin and slice it up and enjoy!

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Valentine’s Day Bake!

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!! 🙂 In the UK, it is lockdown for us so no restaurants are opened for sitting in, only take aways are allowed! I decided to go with the good old fashion steak for dinner with asparagus, mac and cheese and some torte made by mother in law!

I picked up the Asda Good Magazine – Feb Issue last week and they included dessert recipes for Valentine’s. I was going to make their Red Velvet Brownies. At first, I was going to make this with the boys but reading the whole recipe, you had to melt the white chocolate twice and there was alot of mixing. I just thought they wouldn’t have the patience and I didn’t want them to be near the hot bowls. It would be better for me to do it myself and I will bake with the boys next week because it’s their half term!

The recipe can be found here, I changed the quantities of the caster sugar, so only using 150g caster sugar as the bake would be sweet enough with the white chocolate and I ended up using the whole bottle of the red food gel as it was only tiny!

I was pretty happy with the appearance of the brownie before baking as it looked pretty with the swirls! So, when it came out of the oven, the white chocolate looked brown, don’t know if I over baked it as it didn’t look like the picture from the magazine! Lol! I was hoping that it would taste better than it looks! I actually baked it for longer because after 35 minutes, it still looked abit raw!

The boys loved the brownie, it was crunchy at the top and moist inside! You can only have 1 piece as it is quite rich! 🙂 I think next time, i will make it with even less sugar and try to swirl the white chocolate more into the mixture so it doesn’t just stay at the top! 🙂

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Chocolate Digestive Brownies

I love buying snacks and biscuits, my hubby calls me a snack hoarder! My snack cupboard is so full as I love buying but not eating or nor do I let the boys go in there!! I do empty it out once in a while because I forget what I have brought!

I found some chocolate digestives that was close to expiring and the boys didn’t want to eat them so I looked online to see what I can make. I found a recipe that uses the chocolate digestive biscuits in the brownies from Food Magazine – Alia Faisal. Normally, when I make brownies, I add white chocolate drops so I thought it would be interesting to add the biscuits in the mixture.

The brownies was delicious as it had a crunchy texture but also very chocolately!

Ingredients:

Unsalted butter – 175g
Dark chocolate – 100g
Milk chocolate – 100g
Chocolate digestive biscuits – 150g, crushed
Plain flour – 130g
Caster sugar – 300g – I only added 150g because i think the chocolate is sweet enough!
Large free range eggs x 3

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 150°c/gas 2 and prepare a standard 23×33 cm brownie tray.
2. In a heat proof bowl, melt the butter and chocolate over a pan of simmering water making sure that the base of the bowl is not touching the water.
3. Once the chocolate and butter have completely melted and slightly cool add the flour and sugar and mix well. Now add the eggs and beat till it forms a smooth mixture.
4. Add crushed digestive biscuits and give it a quick mix by hand before pouring it into the baking tray. Bake for 35 minutes for the perfect brownie that has a nice crust but squidgy and moist from the inside.