Brownies and Blondies

It’s pretty appropriate that David Bowie’s Changes is my song of the week. For the longest time ever, my go-to brownies and blondies recipe were as such; Alice Medrich’s Best Cocoa Brownies and Smitten Kitchen’s Blondies. I love how both recipes are extremely adaptable and not at all rigid, so in that way by adding and subtracting, I’ve really made them my own. I mean, I don’t even have to refer to the recipes anymore, that’s how many times I’ve made them! But then I got the Baked cookbook and things changed. I don’t have to wax lyrical about their infamous brownies but the reason why I wanted to desperately try out the Brewer’s Blondies was because of this Milk Chocolate Malt Cake. How much do you want to lick that frosting? So basically I wanted to gently ease my way into the malt world because I am not a Horlicks/Ovaltine girl and I’ve never eaten Maltesers before (Twix for life).

Besides, change is good. Right?

 

You know, contrary to this blog’s track record, I do have lots of other cookbooks.

But lately I’ve been overlooking that fact.

 

Baked Brownie
1¼ cups AP flour
1 tpsn salt
2 tbspn cocoa powder
11 oz (310g) bittersweet chocolate (I used milk chocolate)
1 cup unsalted butter, softened and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tspn instant espresso
1½ cups castor sugar
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
5 large eggs, room temperature
2 tspn vanilla extract

-preheat oven to 350°f/175°c
-in a bowl, whisk the flour, salt and cocoa powder, set aside.
-over a double boiler, melt the butter, chocolate and espresso
-turn off the heat and add both sugars and whisk
-remove the bowl from the double boiler and let cool to room temperature
-add 3 eggs and whisk, add the remaining 2 eggs and whisk until just combined
-whisk in the vanilla, do not overbeat
-with a spatula, mix in half of the dry ingredients until just combined before mixing in the rest
-pour batter into a pre-greased 9×13 pan and bake for 30mins, rotating the pan halfway
-let cool completely before cutting

 

Brewer’s Blondies
2⅓ cups AP flour
1½ tpsn baking powder
1 tpsn salt
2 tbspn malted milk powder
14 tbspn (200g) unsalted butter, softened and cut into 1-inch cubes
1¾ cups dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tpsn pure vanilla extract
¾ cup malted milk balls (like Whoppers or Maltesers), coarsely chopped
¾ cup bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate)
¾ cup toasted walnuts, chopped (I used pecans)

-preheat oven to 350°f/175°c
-in a bowl, whisk the flour, salt, baking soda and malted milk powder, set aside.
-beat the butter and brown sugar until creamy, add in the eggs and vanilla
-beat in half of the dry ingredients until just combined before adding the rest, do not overbeat
-beat in the maltesers, chocolate chips and walnut for a few seconds until well combined
-pour batter into a pre-greased 9×13 pan and bake for 25-30mins, rotating the pan halfway
-let cool completely before cutting

 

Tried to cut these bar cookies as uniformly as humanly possible.

I obviously failed.

 

Even though I’m a “vanilla over chocolate” girl, I actually preferred the brownie to the blondie.

I loved the texture of the brownie and the espresso really balanced out the sweetness. At first, I was a bit weary of the fact that the recipe calls for 5 large eggs because nothing is worst than an overwhelming egg taste in desserts. Weirdly enough, the blondies (with its 2 eggs) was more eggy-tasting than the brownies. I like the texture of the blondies, they’re almost pound cake like. And unlike the brownies (I firmly believe that all brownies should be eaten cold, straight from the fridge) they are best eaten warm. Think 15 seconds in the microwave plus a scoop of vanilla ice cream, as prescribed in the book. Also, I think ¾ cup of Maltesers wasn’t enough, I would definitely boost it up to 1½ cups.

2 if I was feeling saucy.

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