Chocolate chip blondies

Blondies are supposedly the non-chocolate alternative to brownies, but let’s face it: they’re basically a chocolate chip cookie in bar form, and you get to cut them into bars without having to portion individual balls of cookie dough.  I’ve been using a lightly adapted version of TheKitchn’s deep dish chocolate chip cookies for some time now, swapping out the vanilla for dark rum or bourbon, and using all dark brown sugar instead of light brown and white.

I recently tried Claire Ptak’s blondies recipe (you can find it on Orangette’s blog) and while good, I prefer my version because it’s easier and faster to make — essentially, I don’t find the addition of the caramel to really be a game changer.  When I want to make blondies, it’s because I want to eat a chocolate chip cookie right away, and so as long as the basic flavor profile is there, I don’t feel a need to punch it up with anything more sophisticated.

You can make these with or without an electric mixer — the finished blondies will be denser and less soft, without as many air pockets, if you mix them by hand with a wooden spoon.  Go for whichever texture you prefer, or choose based on which equipment you feel like washing!

Chocolate Chip Blondies

Ingredients

300g (2c) flour
6g (1t) salt (see notes)
7g (1t) baking soda (see notes)
226g (2 sticks) butter
210g (1c) dark brown sugar
145g (2/3c) sugar (or substitute 140g dark brown sugar)
15g (1T) dark rum or bourbon
100-110g (2) eggs
340g (12 oz) dark chocolate, chopped, or chocolate chips (see notes)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Beat the butter for 1 minute with an electric mixer on medium speed. Add the sugars and beat for 2 minutes, until fluffy.

2. Scrape down the bowl and add the rum or bourbon and the eggs and beat for 1 minute. Add the salt and baking soda and beat for 1 minute.

3. Scrape down the bowl and add half of the flour and beat on low speed until just incorporated. Repeat with the other half of the flour. It’s fine if there are a few streaks remaining. With a wooden spoon or a spatula, stir in the chocolate, making sure that you incorporate any stray flour.

4. Grease a 9×13 pan (you can also line it with parchment paper). Spread the dough evenly in the pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, until firm around the edges. The middle will still look puffy and a little underdone — this is fine, as the bars will continue to set up as they cool. If you go a little past this, that’s fine — the blondies are fairly forgiving.  Cool completely before cutting into (small!!) pieces, or serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

[Makes a whole bunch of blondies. You can halve the recipe and use an 8×8 pan, but why would you do that?]

Notes

I like to use Guittard baking wafers (as dark as possible) for these — they’re a cheaper approximation of Valrhona feves, which is nice for everyday baking, but are still nice and flat for chocolate chips.  I prefer using chips to chopping chocolate for blondies, since it cuts down on prep time and things I have to wash.

If your scale is not sensitive (i.e. it doesn’t measure 1g of anything particularly well), use the volume measures for salt and baking soda.

I’ve provided the weight measure for the eggs just for reference.  I see no reason to be precise to the gram for eggs in this particular case (I would when measuring egg yolks for an ice cream base, for example).