Alice Medrich's Blondies with Toffee Bits

Alice Medrich's Blondies - made July 31, 2022 from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt in Your Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich  

1 cup (4.5 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (6.125 ounces) packed light brown sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon dark rum or bourbon, optional

2/3 cup (2.33 ounces) coarsely chopped walnuts, optional

1/2 cup (3 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips or 1/2 cup toffee bits

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 x 8-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.
3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the brown sugar. Use a wooden spoon to beat in the egg, vanilla and rum, if using. Stir in the flour mixture followed by half the walnuts, if using. Spread the batter in the pan. Sprinkle the remaining walnuts and the toffee bits evenly over the top.
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the nuts look toasted, the top is golden brown and the edges have pulled way from the sides of the pan. Cool in the pan on a rack before cutting and serving.

Every once in awhile, I remind myself I have a ton of baking books I should be using. I literally have full bookshelves of them. And that's after I culled a lot of them out and donated them to my local libraries prior to my last two moves. So I should make more of an effort to use them since I've only tried a fraction of the recipes from those books. That reminder usually comes when I catch myself looking at new ones and almost buying them. Before the mental slap of "use what you already have" comes around.

So with this recipe, I did. I've had good luck with recipes from Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy baking book and this was no exception. Her original recipe calls for adding nuts and chocolate chips into these blondies. I don't like nuts inside most baked goods and I don't really see the point of adding chocolate into blondies. If I wanted chocolate in a bar cookie, I'd make brownies.

Instead, I added toffee bits for a little extra flavor and a bit of a crunch that delivers better than nuts would inside baked goods (nuts steam and soften in baking, hence losing most of their crunch). These blondies were really, really good. I only had a sliver as I was packing them up for Soldiers Angels care packages and the recipe only makes an 8-inch pan's worth of blondies. But I had enough to love the flavor. Surprisingly, I think it was due to the rum. I don't drink but I have rum on hand for baking and it worked really well in this recipe. It cuts the sweetness and adds a flavor you may not guess unless you know it's rum. My non-alcoholic palate wouldn't have known but I thought it was perfect in this blondie.