blondies

I should start off by saying how much I don't like baking. Unlike cooking, where I can taste as I go and fix mistakes as they occur, baking is something I have no control over once I put it into the oven--and ask anyone who knows me, I'm a fan of being the one in control. I've had many a recipe go wrong for whatever reason, and it's always frustrating to make a huge effort and then not end up with the results you want (example: the florentines my mom and I attempted to make in December...utter failure). In any case, I had never made blondies before but decided they'd be fun to try out. Luckily, this was one of my better experiments.


Since I've yet to become adventurous enough to bake without a recipe, I decided to use this recipe from Epicurious.

You will need:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 cups (packed) golden brown sugar
• 2 large eggs (not pictured here but definitely necessary for this recipe! :))
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (about 4 1/2 ounces)
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans (about 3 ounces) (optional...I did it without the pecans)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a brownie baking pan, put aside for later.



Measure out your flour into a large bowl.



Mix flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda in medium bowl.



Melt butter in large saucepan over low heat...mmm, butter. Once melted, remove saucepan from heat. Make sure it's a large one, I started off using my dinky little frying pan and ended up having to move everything into a big pot (college student without lots of kitchen supplies, hi) because you end up pouring the flour mixture into the butter/egg/sugar mixture. Learn from my mistakes and be prepared!




Measure out your brown sugar, dance around a little bit. Dancing isn't necessary (at least, not in this recipe) but definitely makes baking more fun. Awesome.



Add sugar and whisk to blend. Don't have a whisk? Use a fork. That's what I did. Macgyver doesn't have shit on me, man!



Whisk (or using your fork in a whisk-like manner, mix) in eggs and vanilla extract. Since I am whiskless (I'm going to keep bringing this up until someone feels sorry for me and buys me a whisk) I mixed the eggs and vanilla in a bowl on the side, and then poured that mixture into the sugar/butter mix. Also, you can see that this is where I dug out my huge pot, as I realized that there was no way in hell everything was going to fit into my frying pan. Such is the life.



Gradually stir in flour mixture.



Your batter will be thick!!



Spread batter as evenly as possible into the pan you prepared earlier, and sprinkle with chocolate chips (and pecans, if you're so inclined).



Bake blondies until tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 25 minutes. Cool blondies in pan on rack (or if you're like me, dance around to Simon & Garfunkel for fifteen minutes (Cecilia is such an ace song to dance around to in the kitchen) until you can't stand it anymore and you HAVE to take a bite...and it will be the best bite ever). Cut into squares and serve.