Servings: 12 blondies
Ingredients
Pan
- Unsalted butter, for greasing the pan
Brown Butter
- 226 g unsalted butter (makes about 182 g of brown butter)
Batter
- 330 g dark brown beet sugar, packed, or soft dark brown sugar
- 50 g granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, cold
- 1 large egg yolk, cold
- 1.5 tablespoons vanilla extract
- 1.5 teaspoons sea salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 288 g all-purpose flour T55
Topping
- 128 g dark chocolate chips
- Fleur de sel, optional
Procédé
Preparing the Oven and Pan
- Place a rack in the center of the oven.
- Preheat the oven to 175°C.
- Butter a 23 cm square pan.Unsalted butter,
- Line the bottom and two sides of the pan with parchment paper.
Brown Butter
- Put the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.226 g unsalted butter
- Melt the butter over medium heat.
- Once the butter has melted, turn the heat up to medium-high.
- Stir constantly, without taking your eyes off the pan.
- As soon as small golden specks settle on the bottom of the pan and the butter is nicely golden, take the pan off the heat.
- Immediately pour the butter into a medium heatproof bowl, scraping in all the brown bits from the bottom.
- Let the brown butter cool until it is close to room temperature, or slightly warm at most.
Batter
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl with a whisk, combine the brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, egg yolk, vanilla and salt.330 g dark brown beet sugar,, 50 g granulated sugar, 2 large eggs,, 1 large egg yolk,, 1.5 tablespoons vanilla extract, 1.5 teaspoons sea salt
- Beat on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture is thick, lighter in color and smooth.
- Add the cooled brown butter.
- Whisk until the butter is fully incorporated: at first, the mixture resists and tends to separate, so keep going until there is no trace of butter left.
- On low speed, add the baking powder and mix for 30 seconds.1 teaspoon baking powder
- Add the flour.288 g all-purpose flour
- Mix on low speed just until the flour disappears.
- With a spatula, scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl one last time so that no pockets of flour remain.
- Don't overmix: the batter is thick, like cookie dough.
Baking
- Transfer the batter to the prepared pan.
- Smooth the top with the back of a spoon or an offset spatula, without aiming for perfection.
- Scatter the chocolate chips over the top.128 g dark chocolate chips
- Bake in the center of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes.
- Take the pan out when the edges are golden brown, the top has puffed up slightly and the center still jiggles a little.
- Sprinkle with fleur de sel, if desired.Fleur de sel,
Cooling and Cutting
- Set the pan on a wire rack.
- Let cool completely in the pan, 2 to 3 hours: straight out of the oven, the blondies look underbaked, but they firm up as they cool.
- For even cleaner cuts, then refrigerate the pan for a few hours.
- Cut into 12 squares, or 9, with a very sharp knife.
- Wipe the blade clean and dry it between each cut.
Notes
Brown butter: this is what gives these blondies their toasty flavor. To save time, you can simply use melted butter. Melted butter, rather than creamed butter, gives a dense, fudgy texture, not a cakey one.
Cold eggs: the eggs and yolk are deliberately used straight from the fridge to bring down the temperature of the still-warm butter. That way, the batter keeps the right consistency and doesn't melt the chocolate. The extra egg yolk makes the blondies softer and fudgier.
Sugar: American dark brown sugar is a soft, moist brown sugar rich in molasses. In France, dark brown beet sugar (or light brown beet sugar, for a milder flavor) is the closest match. Raw cane sugar, which is drier, makes drier blondies.
Flour: in the United States, all-purpose flour is used. French T55 is the usual supermarket equivalent; in Germany, it's Type 550.
No stand mixer: the recipe works very well by hand, in a large mixing bowl with a whisk and then a spatula, or with an electric hand mixer. Either way, don't overmix once the flour has been added.
Pan: a metal pan is ideal. It's better to grease it with butter than with oil, because with so few ingredients, everything that touches the blondies matters.
Chocolate: here the dark chocolate chips go on top, but any chocolate works (semisweet, dark, milk or white). European chocolate often contains fewer stabilizers than American chocolate chips and tends to melt more during baking.
Toppings: you can replace the chocolate with, or add to it, caramel bits, toffee bits, peanut butter chips or butterscotch chips, or roughly chopped walnuts or pecans. Don't use more than about 240 ml of toppings in total.
Doneness: a fudgy blondie is intentionally underbaked in the center. To be on the safe side, check with a thermometer that the center reaches at least 71°C.
Storage: several days at room temperature in an airtight container.
To serve: plain with a glass of cold milk, or as a dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of caramel.
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