Of all the goodies I made this Christmas season, this seemed to be the universal favorite. I tried to go out of the box this year with my treats and this definitely was.
Makes: 9×13 pan (24 bars)
Adapted from: Mel’s Kitchen Cafe (yet again!)
Ingredients:
2 ¾ c plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 ¼ tsp baking soda
1 ¼ tsp salt
1 ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 ¼ cups (2 ½ sticks) butter, room temperature
1 ¼ cups packed light brown sugar
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1 ¼ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsulfured molasses
1 ¾ cups white chocolate chips
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9×13 pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Cream butter and sugars on medium-high speed in a stand mixer. Add eggs and yolk one at a time, mixing in between each addition, followed by the vanilla and molasses and mix on medium speed until combined.
3. Mix together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Add flour mixture on low speed until combined. Remove from mixer and stir in white chocolate chips.
4. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan and bake until golden around edges and toothpick comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely in pan. Lift our with foil and cut into squares. The edges may be higher than the center and you may want to cut these off separately to create even height bars. Blondies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 1 week.
Notes:
The original recipe used cloves instead of nutmeg. However, I was not about to spend $12 on ground cloves when I needed 1/4 tsp and it’s not a common ingredient. Nutmeg also works with ginger and cinnamon, so I substituted that instead. These were quite good and even though they weren’t my favorite of everything I made before Christmas, they seemed to be everyone else’s favorite.
