Brown Butter Blondies
Author Notes: Inspired by Mark Bittman’s recipe for Butterscotch Brownies from “How to Cook Everything.” This recipe makes enough to get you through a long hard weekend. If you cut the blondies into 1-inch squares, you have enough treats to bring to a holiday party. If you cut them into larger squares and top them with vanilla bean ice cream, you have enough to feed 9 people a very rich dessert.
It might take a few experimental rounds, but you can use this template to create your very own perfect blondies. I cook mine for at least 25 minutes. I like them dense and gooey, almost like a square of raw chocolate chip cookie dough with a crunchy top. But you can cook them a bit longer for a cakier version.
I don’t mess with the amount of butter, flour, or eggs. But all the other ingredients are changeable.
Add anywhere from 1 to 2 cups brown sugar. The more sugar you add, the crunchier the top becomes (a good thing!). But to some, a full 2 cups can be sickly sweet.
If you stir the chocolate chips in while the dough is still warm, you will get a marbled effect. Quite cool. But you can prevent this by completely cooling the melted brown butter before making the dough.
I recommend 1 cup of chocolate chips. But my daughter loves it with 2 cups because the top is like a blondie while the inside looks and tastes almost like a brownie. Super crazy town rich. Watch out.
I’m liking a heaping teaspoon of kosher salt. But you can cut it down to a 1/2 teaspoon and sprinkle an additional 1/2 teaspoon of coarse salt on top of the dough before baking.
You can add 1 cup of any kind of chopped and toasted nuts, chopped dried apricots, white chocolate and/or butterscotch chips, rosemary, thyme. Play. —Phyllis Grant
Serves: 9
-
2
sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter
-
2
cups all-purpose flour
-
1
heaping teaspoon kosher salt
-
2
eggs
-
4
teaspoons good-quality vanilla extract
-
1 3/4
cups dark brown sugar (light brown is a good second choice)
-
1
cup bittersweet chocolate chips
- Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan. Swirl it around a few times. It will foam and spatter. After 3 to 4 minutes, it will start to smell nutty. Don’t walk away. It’s ready when the sizzling quiets down and you see little brown bits drop to the bottom of the pan. Pour into a large bowl. Cool completely (about 30 minutes). Alternatively, if you want a blondie marbled with chocolate, cool butter for only 5 minutes and proceed with the recipe. The warm dough will melt the chocolate chips a bit.
- Heat oven to 350° F. Prepare your 8 by 8-inch baking pan with butter and flour, parchment paper, or aluminum foil (I find foil to be the easiest: just press it into the pan with a little overhang, no need to grease). Set aside.
- Whisk together flour and salt. In another bowl, whisk together eggs and vanilla. Set aside.
- Add brown sugar to the cooled butter. Mix with a wooden spoon for about a minute.
- Add egg/vanilla mixture to butter/sugar mixture. Mix until combined and shiny, about 20 seconds.
- Add flour mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture. Mix until there are still a few pockets of flour visible. Add chocolate chips. Mix until evenly distributed and all flour pockets are gone, but be careful not to over-mix! Spoon dough into your prepared baking pan. Spread evenly with the back of your wooden spoon (it will keep its shape). Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. You can’t do the toothpick test with this because it always comes out clean. Instead, look for a crispy top that's just starting to crack. Firm slightly-browned edges. And when you press on the center, you don’t want it to feel really soft. Don't stress. You can always throw it back in later. Just know that once it's cool, it will firm up quite a bit. And once frozen, it is dreamy in all forms.
- Remove from the oven. Cool completely before removing from the pan. The blondie block should pop right out (either pull out by parchment/alumninum foil or if in a greased pan, just invert onto a cutting board and carefully flip it back over). Cut into desired portion sizes. These keep for a few days at room temperature in an airtight container. Or you can freeze them for a few months.
- This recipe is a Community Pick!
More Great Recipes:
Dessert|Spring|Summer|Fall|Winter|Christmas|Hanukkah|Mother's Day|Valentine's Day
Showing out of comments
This is my go-to dessert and I've made it more times than I can count. The ratio of effort (low) to deliciousness (high) makes it the perfect kind of recipe. I never wait for the butter to cool before preceding with the rest of the recipe - the marbled results from adding the chocolate chips to warm batter are just too lovely.
This makes me very happy! I feel exactly the same way. And I LOVE the raw batter.
I am so thankful for this recipe and my kids love it. It does take a while for butter to brown, but it’s worth it. I don’t wait for the butter to cool and I mix all in one bowl - butter & sugar, then salt, eggs, vanilla, flour, and finally chips. By the time I add the chips the batter is lukewarm, if that, so no melting. Yum!!!
These are, hands down, among my family's favorite dessert. The hardest part about making them is waiting for the butter to brown (because that browned nutty-goodness is what makes them so good!). I never wait for the butter to cool all the way as I'm not patient, and I've been known to stick the pan in the freezer so I can cut into them sooner (otherwise, they're really gooey and delicious, but messy).
These turned out perfectly! I followed the recipe as is and love the result. I will definitely be making these gooey blondies again.
This recipe doesn't work at all. I had to pour probably a 1/4 cup of excess butter out of the pan after 40 minutes in the oven to try to get them to bake.
I made these - absolutely delicious - but I had excess butter around the pan. Did I not let the butter brown enough? Was the butter supposed to reduce in the browning process? Thanks for the recipe!
When I tasted these fresh (mostly cooled from the oven), I thought they were really just ok. BUT THE NEXT DAY they transformed into toffee chocolatey deliciousness that my family and I couldn't stop eating. I did everything according to the recipe with the exception of using semisweet chocolate chips instead of bittersweet (what I had on hand/family preference). I highly recommend baking these and letting them sit in an airtight container overnight before enjoying yourself or gifting to others.
Whoops- I also halved the vanilla
I made these this week -- what a disaster! After using expensive chips and following the recipe, the result was gray, hard and unappetizing. I should have guessed when the dough didn't taste as good as regular cookie/ blondie dough.
Perhaps I baked too long, though 30 minutes is suggested. The butter was still bubbling around the outside of the pan, so who would guess?
After such disappointment I'll stick with the regular blondies, where butter is creamed with sugar.
You must have used rotten eggs. Put your eggs in water. If they float, throw them out. Use fresh eggs next time.
These were delicious! You mention freezing them. Do you thaw and eat or eat them frozen?
Susan W is a trusted source on General Cooking.
Hopefully Phyllis will chime in, but I freeze them all the time. They are good right out of the freezer or thawed. It depends how patient I am at the time. :)
Thank you!
I also keep going back to make this recipe again and again. So good.
Made these Thursday night, shared them at work on Friday. I'd cut them into 1-inch cubes which seemed like a good idea. Until friends said they were the perfect size for mindlessly popping in their mouths. All gone! :)
Used 1C AP and 1C WW (out of AP); 1C chips, 1/2 Walnuts (on one side only). All the vanilla.
Unless you have really good vanilla, I'd probably half the amount in this recipe. Super vanilla-y as is
This is so good! My pet peeve with chocolate chip cookies is that I always prefer raw dough to the finished cookies. This tastes like perfect cookie dough with crisp edges. Fantabulous!
Very rich and decadent. I might add bourbon next time, and maybe more salt (as I love salty sweet desserts)
My batter for some reason was more like a cookie batter.....must be the flour. In any case it turned out great by tasted like a giant cookie. Will try again with less flour next time.
I used 3 teaspoons of bourbon and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. WHOA. Incredible!
can I use the normal salt if i don't have the kosher salt?
Susan W is a trusted source on General Cooking.
Yes. Maybe use 1/2-3/4 tsp if you are using regular table salt. Because it's finely ground, it takes less and is saltier.
okay, thank you so much :)
Hi Susan, you are correct in reducing the table salt measure due to finer grains, but just to clarify, all salt has the same sodium content. Table salt and most sea salts contain about 40 percent sodium by weight. Kosher salt and some sea salts may have larger crystal sizes than table salt, so they may have less sodium by volume (e.g., by teaspoon or tablespoon). Also, the main benefit of choosing more "natural" types of salt is that you avoid additives and anti-caking agents that are often added to regular table salt.
I love this recipe! I made it like 10 times and still not get tired of it. Thank you Phyllis for sharing!
Hey Phyllis, is the brown sugar in this recipe tightly or loosely packed? Thanks!!!
hey michelle. so i pack it the same way i would for chocolate chip cookies. so i guess i would say tightly. they're pretty sweet. sweeter than most things i make. hope that helps!
These are so sinfully delicious. I would eat the entire pan if I could - the combination is perfect. If you haven't made these yet, do yourself a favor and make them tonight.
such a sweet comment. i love them so much too. thank you.
Showing 30 out of 85 comments