I make dinner for my grown kids, their significant others, and an adopted family member every Tuesday night. It somehow just worked out to be on a Tuesday because that’s when everyone has time in their busy schedule. We call it Party Night Tuesday – or PNT. I used to alternate PNT desserts. Being a food blogger and all. That was before my daughter found these incredible blondies in Cook’s Illustrated gluten free cookbook. I’ve adapted the recipe to be dairy free and reduced and changed the sweetener.
This is, absolutely, everyone’s dessert of choice. No one gets tired of these blondies. Everyone is disappointed if I dare make something else. And I don’t mind because they’re simple to throw together. We’ve had them now for months, once a week.
Rebecca said to make sure to tell you that one of the great things about these blondies is that the top is crisp-crunchy and the inside is a little gooey. A quality that is due to the coconut sugar. They said the photo doesn’t communicate that and it’s a wonderful feature that you need to know about.
- 12 ounces Gluten Free Flour Blend - from recipe on this site, see note for substitution
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum (not optional)
- 10 Tablespoons ghee (for dairy free) or butter, melted and cooled
- 10 ounces coconut sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 3 tablespoons milk or almond milk
- 6 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups carob or semisweet chocolate chips (see note)
- Notes:
- 1. I recommend making a batch of my Gluten Free Flour Blend and keeping it in the fridge in a ziplock bag for general baking use. You can substitute King Arthur Gluten-Free Multi-Purpose flour. It will make the blondies taste a little starchy. I don't recommend Bob's Red Mill GF All Purpose Flour. It tastes like beans.
- 2. Carob chips caramelize a little and taste especially good.
- 3. I strongly recommend weighing the ingredients. Gluten free baking is trickier than regular baking and exact quantities matter. Inexpensive kitchen scales are easy to come by.
- Preheat oven to 350°
- For easy blondie removal line a 9-inch square baking pan with a foil sling. Lay two 9-inch wide pieces of aluminum foil in pan, perpendicular to each other, with extra foil hanging over the side of the pan. Push and smooth foil into sides and corner of pan. Grease foil (I spray with coconut oil).
- In medium bowl whisk flour, salt, baking powder and xanthan gum together.
- In a large bowl whisk melted butter or ghee, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla.
- Stir flour mixture into wet ingredients with rubber spatula and mix well until wet ingredients are completely incorporated. Fold in chips. Scrape batter into prepared pan.
- Bake until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 45- 53 minutes.
- Let blondies cool in pan a little. (They taste great served warm). Using foil sling, remove blondies from pan, cut into squares and serve. Blondies keep covered in the refrigerator for about 2-3 days.
Okay, here’s what it is, these are better than advertised. Not so much gooey over here, more like carmelized, the beautiful coconut sugar caramelizes inside and on top with a kind of crystal effect. The inside is rich with that carmel tasting sugar and the rich warm roasted butter flavor and a creamy tongue-coating texture. My daughter used white chocolate chips and almond flour instead of chocolate chocolate chips and the gluten free flour… maybe that secret, strange to us xanthan gum has something to do with the glutenous chewy creamy texture… We can’t help it over here, we are eulogizing them now.
Try them and never look back.