Chocolate Chunk Toffee Bars

Last Tuesday night I panicked. At the last minute, I remembered that I had committed to baking some kind of homemade treat for an occasion the next day, but I had completely forgotten about it! Oops. Luckily, the occasion didn't require anything fancy. If it had, I definitely think I would have been less likely to forget. Thankfully I remembered my obligation to make something, and thankfully it only took about 30 seconds for me to decide what to make. My chocolate chip graham cracker blondies are one of the simplest and fasted desserts to make, and the ingredients are ones that I always have on hand. So, I got to work making them! This time around though, I changed the recipe slightly (which is so easy to do and a great feature of this recipe!) to add chocolate chunks and toffee bits instead of the original chocolate chips and crushed graham crackers that I added when I first made these. Below are the ingredients I used this time around. Feel free to add different mix-ins to match your own personal preference!

Ingredients:

-2 sticks (16 Tbsp.) butter, melted

-2 cups brown sugar (I used light brown sugar)

-2 large eggs

-2 tsp. vanilla

-pinch salt

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-1/2 tsp. baking powder

-1 and 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chunks

-1 cup Heath English toffee bits

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and butter or spray a 13 x 9 pan. Mix the melted butter with brown sugar, and beat until smooth. Beat in eggs and then vanilla. Add the salt, and stir in the flour and baking powder. Mix in your additions (chocolate chunks, toffee bits). Pour into your prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes, or until the middle is set and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely before cutting.

Now these first few pictures I took basically as soon as the bars were just cool enough to remove from the pan. So you can definitely tell how warm, ooey and gooey (i.e., slightly undercooked!!) these are. It's my own preference to undercook them a bit, but you can cook them a couple minutes longer if you'd like. The pictures toward the bottom (when the blondies are on the pink plate) are the next day. The gooey-ness goes away slightly, but they're still very soft and yummy. :)

Mmmmmm...

The next time you need a dessert in a hurry, I hightly recommend you keep these in mind. ;) As I mentioned, they are incredibly easy and are made with normal ingredients that most of us have in our kitchens at any time!

Chocolate Chip Graham Cracker Blondies

Chocolate chip graham cracker blondies. I made 'em on a super hot, 90-degree day. Was I sweating by the end of my time in the kitchen? Yes. Were these blondies totally worth it? Absolutely. I needed a super quick dessert recipe since I was short on time (which is a rather common occurrence for me these days). I knew bars would be the way to go instead of cookies, and when I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, I immediately knew these were "the one." :)

I adapted the recipe slightly, and my exact ingredients are listed below. As you can read on the Smitten Kitchen website, these blondies have been deemed "infinitely adaptable." I love a recipe like that! Be creative with the ingredients you add. The possibilities are endless!

Of note, I doubled the original recipe. So, the proportions below are for a 13 x 9 pan. You can easily halve this for an 8 x 8 pan (and those proportions are on Smitten Kitchen).

Ingredients:

-2 sticks (16 Tbsp.) butter, melted

-2 cups brown sugar (I used light brown sugar)

-2 large eggs

-2 tsp. vanilla

-pinch salt

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-1/2 tsp. baking powder (this is not in the original recipe and you would be fine without it)

-1 cup chocolate chips (I used a combination of milk and semi-sweet)

-approx. 2/3 to 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (I crushed my own; they were coarsely crushed)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 13 x 9 pan. Mix the melted butter with brown sugar, and beat until smooth. Beat in eggs and then vanilla. Add the salt, and stir in the flour and baking powder. Mix in your additions (chocolate chips and graham cracker crumbs). Pour into your prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes, or until the middle is set and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely before cutting.

I slightly under-cooked my blondies, causing them to have an ooey, gooey center. I'd highly recommend you do the same. :) I brought these to a frisbee game to share with my teammates, who gobbled them right up! Are you looking to please a crowd? These blondies may be just what you need.

Yum, yum, yum!!!

Browned Butter Toffee Blondies

Hi friends and happy weekend!! :)

Last Sunday afternoon I had the itch to bake...  I mean, I get that itch a lot ;-), but it had actually been a few days since I had baked, and I didn't actually have an occasion to bake for, so I had the luxury of baking just to bake! I love to bake no matter what, but it's often the occasion for which I'm baking that dictates what I make. Not this time. I got to make whatever I wanted! I was in the mood to make a dessert...brownies or bars of some sort (I didn't feel like doing drop cookies)...so I started to sift through (haha, no pun intended) several of my cookbooks. I read several recipes in my Martha Stewart Cookies book before deciding to try her browned butter toffee blondies. Yummm.

The browned butter in this recipe adds a really nice nutty flavor to these bars. I had never baked using the browned butter technique, so it was fun to try something new! Basically you just melt the butter on the stove and cook it for a while (I think I cooked mine for about 15 minutes) until it reaches a golden brown color and smells nice n' nutty. :) This recipe does have walnuts in it, and although I don't often bake with nuts, they were oh so appropriate for this tasty treat!!

The recipe for you!

-1 and 1/4 cups (1 and 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
-2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
-1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
-1 and 1/2 tsp. salt
-2 cups packed light brown sugar
-1/2 cup granulated sugar
-3 large eggs
-2 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
-1 cup chopped walnuts (about 4 oz.)
-1 cup toffee bits (I actually used Heath bar milk chocolate toffee bits because that's what I had on hand)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line bottom of a 13 x 9-inch baking pan with parchment paper; butter and flour parchment. In a saucepan on the stove over medium heat, cook the butter until it turns golden brown; remove from heat, and let cool. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, combine the browned butter and both sugars; stir with a spoon or spatula until combined. With an electric mixer, add eggs to the butter and sugar mixture, and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla, and beat to combine. Add the flour mixture, walnuts, and toffee bits, and mix until thoroughly combined. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake until a cake tester comes out clean, about 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before turning out of pan onto a cutting board. Peer off parchment paper, and cut blondies into desired size.

The cookbook says the bars can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, but I still have a few more left that have been stored for 6 days, and they still taste great. :-D Most of these I shared earlier in the week with coworkers and neighbors. Everyone enjoyed them very much!! The toffee, nutty flavor of these bars really stands out. They're a really nice sweet treat that doesn't involve chocolate. Although I do love my chocolate, there are days when that's not what I'm craving. In those cases, bars like these are perfect. ;-)

Talk to you again soon!