Summer
Grapefruit Beer Blondies with Toasted Pecans
- Makes 20-ish brownies
Author Notes
I have a special hate for the term “beer snob”.
People who use the term, 99 times out of a 100, don’t have a damn clue what a snob actually is. When you hear someone get called a beer snob, it’s not because they scoff so hard their suspenders fall off when they see you drinking a 7.2% IPA instead of a 6.2%. It’s because you don’t drink piss-water, frat-ogre, terrible beer.
And that’s the only reason.
If I walk up to you and call you a “snob” for enjoying a delicious steak instead of hemorrhaging yourself stupid off of McDonalds quarter-pounders, you’d call me an asshole, and be completely right. But for some reason, as soon as I turn down a beer that comes with a “Vortex-Filtered Swirly Neck Thing” and has the consistency (and taste) of dish water, I’m suddenly the jerk. I suddenly get the “oh, you think you’re better than me because you don’t willingly drink garbage?” look. And you know what?
I do.
I think I’m better than you if you drink crappy beer, just like I’d think I was better than you if all you ate was Cheetos and pre-made frosting from those little cardboard containers.
However, just because a beer’s on the cheaper side doesn’t mean it can’t not suck. Usually I despise fruity beers because they taste like a juice box with an iota of beer in it, but someone turned me onto a cheaper grapefruit beer that actually didn’t completely offend me. Hopefully you’ll like the beer blondies I made with it.
…You snobs.
—Fresh Beats, Fresh Eats
Ingredients
-
1/2 cup
Ruby Red Shiner Bock
-
1/2 cup
room temperature unsalted butter
-
1 cup
sugar
-
1/2 cup
dark brown sugar (packed)
-
1 1/2 cups
AP flour
-
2
eggs
-
1 teaspoon
vanilla extract
-
1 teaspoon
salt
-
1/2 tablespoon
cinnamon
-
1 tablespoon
grapefruit zest
-
1 cup
pecans (roughly chopped)
Directions
- First, preheat your oven to 350.
- Put the butter and both sugars in a stand mixer and beat them for about three minutes on medium, until everything’s nice and fluffy.
- Beat in the first egg, followed by the second. Throw in the vanilla last.
- Whisk together the flour and salt in a small bowl, and throw your mixer on low as you alternate adding the dry stuff and the beer into the buttery goodness.
- Heat up a small pan on medium heat, then throw the pecans and cinnamon in and toss ‘em around a bit. Toast them until they…well, until they smell toasted, and put them on a plate to cool. It shouldn’t take more than a minute, and honestly; it ain’t rocket science. If it smells toasty and delicious, take it off the heat. If it smells burnt, you screwed up. Just don’t be an idiot about it.
- Fold the grapefruit zest and toasted pecans into the batter.
- Get an 8x8 square baking pan and spray it with non-stick, then pour the batter in. Throw it in the oven for 30-35 minutes, check it with the good ol’ toothpick test, and let it cool for a bit.
- Eat it. Preferably not the entire sheet of blondies, but hey: I probably won’t judge.
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