January 22, 2012 – Pumpkin Blondies

Happy Blonde Brownie Day!  My new year’s resolution continues onward and with it the celebration of Blonde Brownie Day!  For this holiday I’d already decided to make Pumpkin Blondies, a recipe which my dearest friend Mai had left at my house many moons ago and that I’d already duplicated in practice.  I decided to make them for our recruitment tea for my singing group (yeah I get it, I’m multi-talented) and of course I made the mistake of waiting until the last minute to pick up some of the ingredients.  Needless to say, Sunday morning was a bit of a rushed bag of tricks as I went to go pick up supplies, had to try three different spots to find the ingredients, then put the blondies together and get them into the oven and then had to run to the wine and spirits store to supply wine for my ladies’ restaurant week dinner later that evening, and back home to make sure the blondies didn’t burn.  What an adventure.

So here it is folks:

Pumpkin Blondies – from a recipe Mai left at my house

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour – check
• 1 T pumpkin pie spice – omitted
• 1 tsp baking soda – check
• ¾ tsp salt – check
• 1 cup unsalted butter – check
• 1 large egg – check
• 2 tsp vanilla – check
• 1 cup pumpkin puree – oops it was pumpkin pie puree so sorry bout it…
• 1 cup white chocolate chips – check
• 1 cup butterscotch chips – surprisingly neither Walgreens, CVS, nor the little shop down the street carries butterscotch chips, so instead I used heath bar crunches that I found at the little shop down the street

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350F.  Set aside your new bar pans to use; you can oil them a bit or maybe use pam.  Woops.

Step 2: In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt (and pumpkin pie spice if you aren’t using pumpkin pie puree)

Step 3: In a bowl beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Try not to let the whole thing beat itself all up in your hair, shirt, and every surface of your kitchen.  Beat in the egg and vanilla until well combined.  Mix in the pumpkin puree or pumpkin pie puree if you’re not that smart and bought the wrong ingredients. 

Step 4: Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. 

Step 5: “Fold” in the white chocolate and heath bar chips.  Fold is just a fancy term for mix. 

Step 6: If you use just one pan, throw the whole batter into the pan.  If you’re using bar pans spoon a bit of the stuff into each bar spot. 

Step 7: Bake about 35-40 minutes, or enough time to run to the wine and spirits store, have a lovely gentleman help you pick out a nice Malbec and run back home.  Also use the toothpick test to determine if the bars are done.

Step 8: Allow to cool in pan on wire rack until able to take out of the pan (and to cut into pieces if you used a big ol' pan), but if you’re in a time crunch find a way to make it work.   Then run out the door to go greet strangers and chat with friends.

Whew.  I can’t even tell you how lovely my apartment smelled for A WHILE after making these.  Also they turned out well.  My friends Katie and Rick said “They’re nice”.  I’m going to share them with my co-workers too since a full batch of these is too many for me.

This foodsperiment: +8 for taste, +5 for ease, +5 for easy cleanup, +5 for helping out at a potluck, and +5 for my first batch of bars using my new bar pans (thanks Ma!).  Happy Sperimenting!

Pumpkin Blondies!