It's been a big week for my kitchen. I had Prof. Hubs' Russian Feast to prepare for all of his students and a cookie exchange to attend within 24 hours of each other. They both went off without a hitch. Well, sort of. I had originally planned to bring three dozen parisian macarons (pumpkin flavored, of course) to the cookie exchange. I worked so hard on them for hours-I even PIPED the meringue into the perfect little discs hoping to achieve that gorgeous, smooth, footed shell for my macarons... Alas, it was not to be. My macarons were hideous. This was partly due to a food dye incident which caused them to be BRIGHTPINK instead of light orange, but mostly due to the fact that they were bumpy, footless, and not at all shiny and gorgeous. I had to toss them. But what to bring to the cookie exchange?
Enter the blondie.
I took a Zingerman's recipe and messed with it some (I did not feel like/have the ingredients for making a separate praline) to make a perfectly gorgeous blondie. It comes together lightning fast and tastes really homey and delicious... Especially if, like me, you take them out a smidgen early so that the center bars are still really goey and chewy :)
Desperate Housediva's Gorgeous Blondies
inspired by a recipe from the Zingerman's bakehouse
Makes 16 large blondies
1 cup butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp dark Rum or Cognac
1.5 cups cake or all purpose flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 to 1.5 cups bittersweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 325
Melt the butter. In a large bowl (or standing mixer) combine melted butter and brown sugar. Mix well until emulsified. Add vanilla, rum and eggs. Gently add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Add chocolate chips.
Pour into greased 8X8 pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, until set and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool on rack.
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