Wednesday 3 February 2010

Butterscotch Blondies

After a lot of research into the subject of blondies, which I've been meaning to try for a long time, I selected this recipe for Butterscotch Blondies from Cookie Madness, which in turn was a Richard Sax recipe published on Joy of Baking. I added 50g fudge chips and 65g chopped toasted and salted Macadamia nuts, instead of the additions suggested in the recipe.

I haven't been as disappointed with a recipe for a long time. It's the closest I've been to throwing something away for a long time, too.

I don't know whether something went wrong with the recipe, or if I just don't like blondies. The first disappointment was the depth of the blondies when cooked. It's difficult to see from the photo, but the bars were only around 1cm (less than half an inch) deep - more like a biscuit than a brownie.

From the more risen edges, visible on the photo, it looks as if the blondies rose more initially but then collapsed. The texture was like a fallen meringue - chewy and sugary in a very unpleasant way.

The only redeeming feature, and what stopped me from binning them, was the macadamia nuts. I'd love to use them more in baking but they are soooo expensive! My son hasn't tasted them yet - if he doesn't like them, they may still end up feeding the birds!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't give up, Suelle, there are some delicious blondie recipes out there! They're not usually so dense though, and they often have a similar texture to a brownie. I'll see if I can find a nice Mrs Field's recipe for you...

Choclette said...

Oh what a shame. I saw the post butterscotch blondies and thought, this has got to be for me - I find it very hard to resist butterscotch. Now I'm not so sure. Don't give up on the blondies though - try another recipe.

I really like macadamias too, but agree with you about the expense - they are a bit of a luxury.

Suelle said...

Another recipe to try would be good, Celia. I haven't looked at Australian recipes yet. Meanwhile I'm think I'm going to find out if white chocolate brownies are nicer.

Choclette - I'm often disappointed by butterscotch flavours in baking, but I do like it! Recipes using dulce de leche or similar products are often better than recipes using brown sugar.

Stephanie said...

Oh how sad! I hate when recipes I'm excited about disappoint me. But don't let this stinky blondie ruin blondies for you! When using the right recipe, they can be ohhh so good!!

Zeb said...

Suelle - Do you think this stuff might work in a brownie somehow? Merchant Gourmet Dulce de Leche Chocolate Toffee squeeze? It's quite runny and I don't know how to adapt recipes but I think it might have possibilities? Zeb

Suelle said...

Hi Zeb.

I'm not too good at adapting recipes myself. I'm OK with swapping dried fruits, nuts, spices etc but not when it comes to messing around with the basic proportions of fat:sugar:flour:liquid, which this product would do.

I'll have to give it some thought as I can't think of any obvious way to use it at the moment. Hopefully I'll get back to you!

Suelle said...

Zeb - I found a recipe on the Merchant Gourmet site which drizzled half a bottle of Dulce de Leche Chocolate Toffee Squeeze over the top of a cinnamon cake and marbled it into the surface before baking. I'm not sure this idea would work with brownies, as the visual effect is part of the attraction, but it could be good over blondies.
http://www.merchant-gourmet.com/recipes/desserts/chocolate-toffee-cinnamon-cake/

Zeb said...

Marbled into the top of a cake, hmm sounds good, but it wouldn't work on a brownie because you wouldn't have that brownie 'crust' then would you, is that what you mean? I put some of the cwc caramac into a cake I made, the cake was a bit of a disaster, rose and fell, but I think that was due to an insufficient quantity of baking powder, but it definitely gave the cake a distinctive gentle caramac/toffee light taste which has potential I think! I have still to make brownies with it, trying hard not to bake too much as my waist line is struggling. I'll let you know what happens...

Suelle said...

Hi Zeb - what I really meant was that a chocolate/toffee sauce marbled into the top of a brownie wouldn't provide much visual contrast because they would both be more or less the same colour. A dark ripple looks better on a pale cake, IMO.

Sorry to hear your caramel cake wasn't a total success - I'll be trying butterscotch blondies again tomorrow, with a new recipe, so fingers crossed this time.