I’ve voiced my reluctance towards blondies and their close relative the brownie before.  There’s something crass about them.  Unreasonably sweet and dense to the point of being clumsy.  And also, I don’t like the way they look when cut into squares–all those raw edges make for a very inelegant dessert.  But when it comes to baked goods my opinions are apt to change.  A few weeks ago I had a blondie at MILK and shamefully (shamefully!) inhaled the poor blondie.

Marcus is performing American Rifle 2 at LACE tonight so I thought this might be a good opportunity to re-assess the blondie, especially since Marcus has listed them among his favorite baked goods (with the condition that there isn’t too much “stuff” in them).

But if I’m going to put the effort into making a blondie, I’m going to make it my own.  Yes a blondie is generally known to be a “leftover” dessert.  People just put all the leftover chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, nuts, m & m’s, etc into them.  I say no to this.

The first kind I made was with a marbling of matcha green tea and because white chocolate and green tea is one of my all time favorite pairings, I added Valhrona white chocolate chips into the batter.  I’ve already eaten 2.  The bitterness of green tea with the creamy white chocolate and buttery blondie batter just makes a ridiculous amount of sense.

The second variety I made with a combination of tart and sweet dried cherries, semi-sweet chocolate chips and a few peanut butter chips, with the hopes of mimicking something like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I’ve yet to try these but I sort of don’t know what could go wrong with the flavor combination.

I also solved the problem of raw edges by using a square mini cake pan so every blondie has chewy edges and things look neat and clean.

I feel like I’m tooting my own horn in this entry. Sorry.

Ingredients:

8 tablespoons (4 oz) of butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 egg

1 cup of all purpose flour

pinch of salt

1. preheat oven to 350

2. grease either an 8 by 8 pan or use a mini square cake pan like i did

3. melt butter in microwave for about 30 seconds

4. blend brown sugar into butter until fully combined

5. whisk in egg and vanilla

6. with a wooden spatula fold in the flour and salt

7a. at this point if you’re making the green tea marble, split the batter in half.  add about 3/4 cup of white chocolate chips into one half and mix in 2 teaspoons of matcha green tea powder into the other half.

7b. if making cherry chocolate peanut butter blondies: stir in 1/4 cup tart cherries, 1/4 cup sweet cherries, 1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, 1/4 cup peanut butter chips

8a. for the green tea marble: spoon alternating amount of batter into prepared pan and with a toothpick swirl the batter without overmixing

8b. spoon equal amounts of mixture into prepared pan

9. bake for about 20 minutes