TWD: Chewy, Chunky Blondies

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Nicole of Cookies on Friday: chewy, chunky blondies.  This post is almost two days late, but not because I procrastinated on making the blondies.  In fact, they were made on Sunday and I planned to schedule my post about them on Monday night.  Unfortunately, when I got home from work Monday I didn’t feel well so I decided to push the post until Tuesday and I went to bed early.  I woke up Tuesday feeling so much worse – I didn’t even get out of bed all day.  Now, Wednesday night, I’m finally starting to feel slightly more human and figured if I didn’t get this post up now it would never happen.  Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to work and I am keeping my fingers crossed I’ll be feeling 100% by the weekend!

I actually made the blondies twice on Sunday.  Both times I halved the recipe and baked them in an 8-inch square baking dish lined with aluminum foil so I could easily lift them out.  I substituted peanut butter chips for the butterscotch chips and completely omitted the walnuts.  When I removed the first batch from the oven they tested done at about 40 minutes (the suggested baking time), but as they cooled, the center began to sink and the more they cooled, the more obvious it became that I had some severely underbaked blondies.  They weren’t very attractive, but they were super yummy – basically a more delicious chocolate chip cookie due to the addition of peanut butter chips.  The coconut didn’t add flavor so much as it added texture and made the blondies chewy.

Later that night, I roped Shane into helping me bake a second batch of the blondies in the hopes of achieving a more photogenic result.  I was wary though.  See, Shane does not like coconut and I knew that if he helped me bake the blondies I wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that there was coconut in them (and I was really counting on him to help me eat these, as I was now baking them a second time).  It was late, I was feeling lazy, and I wanted to get them done quickly, so I decided to chance it.  When he saw me measure the coconut he was quite concerned that (a) I’d snuck coconut in the first batch and let him eat them without telling him and (b) the same quantity of coconut was going into the blondies as there was chocolate chips.  Needless to say, it speaks volumes about how much he liked these blondies that he ate them even after he knew about the coconut.  I baked this second batch a little longer than the first, and still, the center sunk a bit as they cooled.  The first batch went into our freezer and we’re going to use the pieces to top ice cream – yum!! – and the second batch was eaten as is.  Definitely a repeat recipe for us despite the issues with the baking time.

Lots of thanks to Nicole for hosting this week!  You can find the recipe on her blog or on page 109 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.