Browned butter blondies

The other day B and I had a relatively low key day.  We got up and picked up some coffee (and a donut)....walked up a little and then all the way across town to get, yup, another donut.  Walking back across town, we stopped at my most favorite cheese shop in Little Italy and bought provisions for dinner that night, then ended up at Whole Foods to buy the rest of the dinner stuff and some stuff for me to make blondies...because clearly after two donuts (I guess it was technically one each, but still), baking anything is clearly the logical thing to do...

See, I had been copying down A LOT of recipes that I had been coming across lately, and one of them was for blondies.  They were touted as being some of -- if not -- the best out there, so I figured I'd take a stab at them.  Except I don't like nuts in my baked goods, so I left those out.  And ever since I made those browned butter brown sugar cookies, I've been more than a wee bit obsessed with browned butter...and since these blondies called for melted butter anyway, I figured why not brown the butter, too?  Which was, frankly, a delicious idea!

I wanted my blondies a little thicker than the recipe called for, so I made mine in an 9 x 9 inch pan, and then left out some of the batter (to attempt something, which didn't work out exactly as I had hoped).  This yielded a chewy, thick, delicious blondie!  So delicious and rich, in fact, that I had to send the rest of the pan to work with B to get them out of the apartment!

Browned Butter Blondies
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated, Found at Food52.com

Ingredients:

1.5 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp table salt
12 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted, browned, and cooled
1.5 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
4 tsp (yup, you read that right!) vanilla extract
6-8 oz white chocolate chips (1 cup) or chopped bar, or 3-4 oz each white chocolate chips and semisweet chocolate chips (use smaller amounts if using nuts; if leaving out the nuts, use the higher amounts)

1 cup pecans or walnuts (4 oz), optional

Directions:

If using nuts, put the oven rack in the middle of the oven.
Preheat to 350F,
Spread nuts on a large rimmed baking sheet and bake until deep golden brown, 10-15 minutes.
Transfer to cutting board to cool.
Chop coarsely and set aside.

While the nuts toast, line a 9x13 inch baking pan with foil, leaving enough overhand to help you lift the blondies out of the pan when they're done.
Grease the foil-lined pain with butter or oil.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.
Set aside.

Whisk browned butter and brown sugar together in a medium bowl until combined.
Add eggs and vanilla.
Mix well.
Using a rubber spatula, fold in the dry ingredients until just combined -- do not overmix.
Fold in chocolate (and nuts, if using....I did not).
Turn batter into prepared pan, smoothing top with a rubber spatula.

Bake until top is shiny, cracked, and light golden brown, 22-25 minutes.
Do not overbake.
Cool on a wire rack until room temperature.
Remove bars from pan by lifting by foil overhang.
Transfer to cutting board.
Cut into 2 inch squares and serve.

Browned butter brown sugar cookies

I had really been a bum when it came to baking this month.  Sadly, the last two posts that I put up today were from a few weeks ago -- and that's the last time I actually baked anything.  It's a shame, really.  But the decadence of these cookies more than makes up for the lack of baking I've been doing.  Like I-think-I-gained-back-the-few-pounds-I-lost-in-the-past-week-or-so decadent....and I just ate one!

The secret is actually two-fold: don't use regular butter, use browned butter*....and don't use sugar, don't use light brown sugar, but use dark brown sugar.  Uber decadent.  Uber rich.  Thank goodness they're so rich I can't eat more than one at a time, because if I could, I would....and that would be dangerous!

* When it comes to making browned butter, be careful.  It goes from perfectly browned and nutty and aromatic to burnt in a few seconds.  Trust me, it happened to me the first time I made browned butter and it turned me off to making it for a while.  And then I made it again today for these cookies and....in the span of 2 seconds, I burned the batch again!  Bottom line?  Watch it.  Like a hawk.  Consider yourselves forewarned.

These cookies are delicious.  But they aren't for the faint of heart (or the diabetics....)...

Browned Butter Brown Sugar Cookies
From Eats Well With Others

Ingredients:

14 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks)
1 3/4 cups packed dark brown sugar (if you have light brown sugar and molasses, you can find a conversion online to turn your light brown sugar into dark brown sugar....trust me, it's what I had to do)
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda (Looking back, I may have used 3/4 tsp)
1/4 tsp (Looking back, I may have used 1/2 tsp....my head was clearly in the clouds today)
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 1/2 Tbsp vanilla
(You can see, from above, that my head may have been in the clouds a little when I was measuring the ingredients, since I'm not sure if I 1.5-2 timesed the baking soda and powder.  The cookies turned out perfectly, so I'm not sure what happened, but that might explain why my cookies were a little fluffier than I thought they would've been.  But I digress...)

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
(I couldn't do the conversions again for the light to dark brown sugar for this one, so I just used 1/2 cup light brown sugar plus 2-3 Tbsp granulated sugar, mixed well, and that worked perfectly!)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Melt butter in a skillet or frying pan over medium heat.
Allow to simmer until it starts to turn an amber color, and smelly nutty and fragrant.
Remove from the heat, and place in a separate bowl.
Allow to cool for 15 minutes.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the browned butter and brown sugar until well-blended.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
Set aside.

Add the egg and egg yolk to the sugar/butter mixture, one at a time.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition.
Mix in the vanilla.

Mix the flour mixture into the mixer, stirring until just combined.

In a small bowl, combine the sugar and brown sugar (or, use the mixture I gave above).

Scoop the cookie dough into balls using a 1 1/2 Tbsp cookie scoop or scoop into rounded tablespoons.
Roll each ball in the sugar mixture.
Place on the prepared baking sheets, leaving 2 inches between cookies.
I pressed mine down a little bit.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are starting to set around the edges.
Allow to cool before serving.