Twix Blondie Bars

Twix Blondie Bars - made January 17, 2014 from Curly Girl Kitchen

I'm posting slightly out of order because today, January 22, is National Blonde Brownie Day. Bet you didn't know that. Yeah, me either until I looked up January Food Holidays. Lest you think I actually planned ahead and coordinated to bake and post this at the appropriate time, the truth is I originally picked this recipe to try out because the original recipe from Curly Girl Kitchen uses cream cheese for the frosting and I still had a Costco-sized block of cream cheese from my holiday baking season to use up. Hitting National Blonde Brownie Day was pure coincidence. The recipe reads like a chocolate chip cookie in bar cookie form which I traditionally don't make because I prefer chocolate chip cookies as actual cookies, not bars. But I decided to try it anyway and since it technically isn't chocolate and is in bar form, it qualifies as a blonde brownie or a blondie for short. I'm glad I did try it though because this was a nice little blondie. It's more of a chewy brown sugar blondie than a chocolate chip cookie. I added chopped up Twix as well as chocolate chips and that added a little bit of crunch from the shortbread of the Twix.

Ironically, I liked the taste of the plain blondies so much that I skipped making the frosting for it because I didn't want the cream cheese to mask or compete with the dark brown sugar flavor of the bars. I'm going to have to try another recipe to use up my cream cheese. These bars were great just plain.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
2 cups packed dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I substituted cinnamon)
optional add-ins - chocolate chips, chopped pecans, etc (I added chocolate chips and chopped up Twix)

Frosting (if you're inclined)
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon light corn syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 350.  Spray a 9 x 13 pan with nonstick spray.
2. In a large bowl, combine the melted butter and brown sugar with a whisk until smooth.  Whisk in the eggs and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder and nutmeg, then add to the batter.  Stir in any add-ins such as chocolate chips or nuts.  Batter will be thick.
3. Spread evenly in the pan and bake for 25 minutes, until the edges are golden brown but the center still looks a little gooey.  Let cool for 30 minutes.
4. Combine the softened cream cheese with the powdered sugar and corn syrup until smooth; spread over the still-warm bars.  Let cool completely before cutting into squares.