Blondies

First a word about mise en place.  It really does help to have all of your ingredients out before you begin, like this:

When you read this recipe, you are likely to say to yourself, "I have all of these ingredients, what's the big deal?"  The big deal is that not all butter, vanilla, flour, even chocolate chips, are alike.  So, here's what I would use to make them:

Butter:  I have found that imported European butter makes a superior baked product.  Curiously, it is because American butter has water added (don't know why).  My current favorite for baking is Lurpak, unsalted.  Plugra, which is a European-style butter made in the U.S., still has some water in it.

Flour:  I am a fan of King Arthur Flour, unbleached organic All-Purpose, which can be found in some grocery stores, but can also be ordered on line from their Baker's Catalog.

Salt:  Okay, now we're really getting obsessive.  However, I think that French sea salt has a cleaner, clearer taste than the ubiquitous Morton's.  I order Baleine fine crystals on Amazon. Don't worry, you'll get plenty of iodine in the rest of your food.

Sugars:  I did try generic (in my case, Wegman's brand) brown sugar, and it was not as good as Domino's.  The store brand was coarser grained, didn't dissolve as well.  When a baking recipe calls for granulated sugar, I always used extra-fine sugar because it dissolves much better.  Confectioner's sugar has cornstarch in it, so can only be used when it is called for because of the thickening properties it has.

Eggs:  I buy veggie-fed, organic cage-free large eggs.  Why not contribute to a happier life-style for the chickens?  Always bake with room-temperature eggs to achieve the volume you want, and to allow the eggs to incorporate with the other ingredients.  I leave them out for several hours.  As long as they're in their shells there are no health issues in doing this.

Vanilla:  I only use Penzey's double vanilla in my baking.  It's expensive, almost ruinously so, but once you've started using it, there's no going back.  Available at Penzey's stores or from their on-line catalog.

Pecans:  If you're going to add nuts to baked goods, it will add tremendously to the flavor to toast them first.  Once you've tried it, you'll agree that it's worth the extra step.  I buy baby pecan halves, measure them out, and then toast them in a 375 degree oven for 8 or 9 minutes until I can smell that toasty pecan smell.  Buy the best ones you can find and you'll be glad you did.  For this recipe, it calls for a rough chop.  I like the pecans to be big enough to taste, but not too much bigger than the chocolate chunks.  They should look like this:

Chocolate Chips:  This is truly a matter of taste.  I prefer Barry Callebaut semisweet chocolate chips or chocolate chunks (available at Baker's Catalog), although I have also made them with bittersweet and they're pretty yummy, too.  If I'm out of Barry Callebaut, I might use Ghiradelli double chocolate chips.

Toffee Bits:  The ones at my grocery store are Heath, but there might be another brand out there somewhere.

Pans:  I am currently using the 9-inch square USA pan from King Arthur Flour Baker's Catalog, which is corrugated and seems to do an excellent job of baking evenly.

Parchment Paper:  I buy the roll of Wilton parchment paper at the store, although we'll revisit this when we get to baking cookies.

Ovens:  I now have the oven of my dreams, the Wolf double wall ovens.  They preheat in about 20 minutes, hold a true temperature (+/-5 degrees) and don't have appreciable hot spots, although I still turn pans midway out of pure superstition.  I will do a whole blog (some might say diatribe) on ovens at a later date.  You will have to figure out the temperature and time in your oven by trial error.  Sorry, I can't help you there.

O.K., now we're finally ready to go to the recipe, which will be liberally illustrated by photos from Steve.

BLONDIES

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 1/2 sticks (6 oz) unsalted butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup coarsely chopped toasted pecans

1 1/3 cups toffee bits (the whole package)

1 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 335 degrees F.  Line a 9x9x2-inch baking pan with parchment paper, allowing a 2-inch overhang so you can lift the blondies out after they have cooled.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan; add both sugars and whisk until combined and sugar is melted, about 5 minutes.  In the first photo the butter is sitting on top, in the second, butter is still sitting in a ring around the edge, and in the bottom, the butter is fully incorporated into the sugar, and bubbling merrily, smelling and tasting like a wonderful caramel.

Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl and let cool slightly (you don't want to cook the eggs...).  Whisk in the eggs and vanilla extract until combined.  Add the flour and whisk until just incorporated.  The batter will still be warm, so I add the flavor morsels in the order that I think they will hold up to the heat best, and do it as quickly as possible.  The order I do it is: pecans, toffee bits, and chocolate chips.    Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan.

Bake for 27 minutes or until the top puffs up.  It will not be firm to the touch.

A toothpick inserted into the center will come out with moist pieces clinging to it.

Remove to a wire rack and let cool completely.  The center will sink (that's the really gooey part) and it will look like this:

Remove the bars from the pan using the parchment paper handles.  Transfer to a cutting board and cut into 2-inch squares. 

Makes 16 squares.

Once the blondies are completely cooled and cut, I place them in a freezer bag with a zipper (makes it easier to get in and out :)...) and keep them in the goody drawer of the freezer.  You can let them defrost on a plate for about a half hour, or for the impatient, nuke a single one for 23-24 seconds.  Or just put one in a baggie for your lunch.  These are the treat that people fight over in the goody drawer, so you will have decide exactly who you want to share them with.

A word here about freezing baked goods.  As long as what you are baking has a soft texture, freezing actually improves its moisture (thank you Jessica for that tip when we made the chocolate orange cake).  And most cookies start to dry out within a day.  Even well-wrapped baked goods are best eaten within two weeks of baking.  

Variation:  Blondies without nuts.  If you prefer not to have the nuts or have a nut allergy, you can make the recipe omitting them.  However, you may have to decrease the baking time by 2 minutes, and you can expect the volume to be somewhat less.  Matt loves them this way.

A Little Introduction

Welcome to my kitchen.  You've received an invitation to my blog because you've expressed interest in being able to make something you tasted at my house.  I want to make this interesting and fun, but also give you a blueprint to make some really outstanding dishes.  I'll also give you my thoughts on whatever I'm trying to perfect at the moment.

Today, I'm working on biscuits. Seems easy, right?  But I can't tell you how many recipes I've tried, and I'm just not quite happy yet.  Some are made with Crisco, some with butter, some with lard, some with half Crisco and half butter.  Some use AP (all-purpose) flour, some use pastry flour, some call for White Lily (soft winter flour found in the South).  Some use milk, some cream, and some buttermilk.  The technique is usually the same (although that varies too), and I have learned a few tips there.  What I'm looking for is something flaky, melting in your mouth, but strong enough to hold some butter and jam or some kind of meat (ham?  fried chicken?  sausage?).  I think the biscuits of my dreams are the ones made by a cook at the sorority I lived in for one semester in college.  She was from the South, and her biscuits were perfect.  So I'll keep experimenting until I get something that tastes like I remember.  Of course, memory can fool us, too...

Before we begin, I have a few words to say about ingredients and cooking equipment (I'm saving ovens for a longer, somewhat fanatical, post).  Have you ever tried to duplicate a friend's recipe and it just doesn't taste the same?  It turns out that there are a lot of variables, not only in the exact ingredients you use, but in the equipment you cook with.  I will be extremely (some will say obsessively) explicit about what I use, based on years of trial and error and reading cookbooks and magazines.  This is not to say that you have to do exactly the same thing, but your results will vary accordingly.  It is also true that we each have our own palate, so what tastes good to me may not to you.  I suggest starting with as close to my version as possible, then vary according to your taste after that.

One of the things I have learned is that the quality of ingredients really does matter.  Sometimes that means that they are more expensive, but sometimes it is more important that something be fresh.  Chocolate, for example, loses flavor with age.  Flour lasts about two years, so you'll probably be able to use it up long before it gets stale.  With each recipe I plan to give you my thoughts on each ingredient, along with some suggestions about brands to look for.

By popular demand, the first recipe I'll post will be my signature Blondies.  So stay tuned!

Judy