Chocolate Chip Blondies

A couple weeks ago we had a dessert potluck at work. Because it was a bit last minute I decided to stick with brownies or bars: quick to bake, usually makes enough for lots of people. Rather than turn to Pinterest or the internet I turned to my cookbooks (with a limited amount of eggs and butter, it would be quicker to skim the recipes for what I had). I grabbed 500 Best Cookies, Bars, & Squares and started looking at the brownies and bars sections, eventually settling on Chocolate Chip Blondies since I had all the ingredients (or so I thought).

Chocolate Chip Blondies (500 Best Cookies, Bars, & Squares, pg. 146)

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2/3 cup butter, softened (I only had one stick, which is a little more than 1/2 of what I needed so I did a little math and added a couple tablespoons of vegetable/canola oil)
• 2 cups packed brown sugar (I ended up having not enough so I turned to the Common Ingredient Substitutions table I bookmarked from Allrecipes.com and it suggested about equal parts white or powdered sugar. So after I ran out of white sugar I added powdered sugar. Seemed to work OK)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup peanut butter chips (optional)
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350℉. Grease 13x9-inch cake pan.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. In a large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar until smooth and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Stir in vanilla. Blend in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate and peanut butter chips, walnuts, and pecans.
4. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown. Place pan on a wire rack to cool completely, then cut into squares. Makes 30 blondies.

Only about half were eaten (like I said, it was a dessert potluck so there were plenty of options) so I brought the remaining bars to a potluck that my department had a week later. They were finished off. Everyone seemed to like them (despite the three different types of sugar). My dad also had one when he stopped by to help me with something and he liked it.