A day of misery and rain and nothing better to do than watch the Tony awards and curl up with a blondie (brownie’s sister). This recipe comes from Edd Kimber’s The Boy Who Bakes and is the perfect treat to bake on a cold winter’s day as it is full of glorious spices that warm the soul.
This recipe takes the spicy flavours found in the Belgian biscuit, Speculaas, and marries them with a blondie, which is similar to a brownie but is made with brown sugar.
Ingredients
- 225g unsalted butter (extra for greasing)
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamon (I love cardamom so I doubled this quantity)
- 400g light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 250g plain flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 80g good-quality milk chocolate, roughly chopped
- 80g hazelnuts, chopped (I didn’t have any hazelnuts to used almonds instead)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees (160 fan-forced). Grease a 23 x 33cm baking tin and line with baking paper, leaving a 5cm overhang to make removing the blondies easier.
- Melt the butter in a pan over medium-high heat, add the spices and cook for a couple of minutes, then add the sugar and cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring constantly before taking the pan off the heat.
- Leave to cool for 5 minutes, then whisk in eggs and fold in the flour, salt and baking powder. (I found 5 minutes was not enough cooling time. Give it 10). Stir in the chocolate and hazelnuts, then pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes.
- Allow to cool completely in the tin. Blondies take a few hours to firm up, so refrigerate if you want to expedite before cutting into squares.
