Countdown to t-minus less than two weeks until christmas. Countdown to oh shit what am I going to get that one person I don’t want to spend a lot of money on. Countdown to everyone in the world that likes homemade food gifts which should be everyone in your life and those who don’t can be dropped, like the mic when you deliver these blondies.
This whole week we’re going to be talking about food gifts. It’s like the 12 days of christmas but there’s only 5 and every day ur true love gives you carbs and butter and sugar.
It’s the best.
We’re kicking things off with one of my favorites, the chewy toffee bomb blondie, mashed up with one of the greatest ice cream flavors: Tin Roof Sundae.
ring ring
hello?
it’s my childhood i have to take this.
For those of you that lived in a cave growing up, tin roof sundae is vanilla ice cream with fudge ripples (almost wrote nipples what a dream come true) and chocolate covered peanuts and it was always always in our freezer always in my heart.
I guess it’s sort of like a philly cheesesteak hot pocket situation where everything’s sort of there already. YOUR ICE CREAM IS ALREADY A SUNDAE STRAIGHT OUT THE CARTON.
All that means we’re tin roofing these blondies by coating our own peanuts in chocolate, licking all the leftover chocolate out of the bowl then folding said peanuts into the batter. It’s a win-win for everyone. Of course you could just buy chocolate covered peanuts but I think that the chocolate to peanut ratio is way out of line. We want a kiss, not a kid’s choice award sliming.
ALSO BONUS: Since these are blondies they run in the same royal bloodline as all cookies so they’re acceptable for any christmas cookie party, especially if there are awards, you can just cut them smaller so it looks like you made more.
Tin Roof Blondies
Makes 9 for gifting, 16 for a party
A couple notes: If you want to make more the recipe easily doubles to make a 9×13″ pan, you just need to lean towards the longer baking time, and if for some reason you’re like, no I hate chocolate covered peanuts then just use a cup of whatever the hell you want. Pistachios would be great, dried cherries, walnuts, pecans, etc. You don’t even need the chocolate.
6 tablespoons butter, cubed up
1 cup light brown sugar (I highly suggest making your own for these)
3.5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup unsalted dry roasted peanuts
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Start by melting your butter in a large bowl in the microwave (if you don’t have a microwave then gently melt it in a small saucepan then add it to a large bowl) and whisk in your brown sugar. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes.
Line a baking sheet that you can fit in your freezer with parchment paper or plastic wrap. Melt down the chocolate in a medium size bowl in the microwave in 30 sec. increments, stirring after each 30 sec. so the chocolate doesn’t burn. Stir in the peanuts using a fork until everyone’s coated then scrape everyone onto the prepared baking sheet and spread out the peanuts using the fork (a spatula or spoon might scrape off the chocolate) and place in the freezer.
Prepare an 8×8″ baking pan by lining it with parchment paper so you’ve got a strip that covers the bottom and comes up two sides that can act as handles. Spray the two exposed sides with non-stick spray and set aside. By now it should be about 15 minutes so we can carry on with the batter.
To the cooled butter and brown sugar whisk in your large egg and vanilla, then fold in your flour, baking powder, and salt with a rubber spatula just until the flour disappears.
Take out the peanuts, the chocolate should be set, and give them a rough chop, right on the baking sheet to break up the peanuts and chocolate. Carefully and quickly fold them into the batter, play with it too much and the chocolate starts to become one with the batter and that’s not what we’re looking for.
Add the batter to the pan and spread it out (hands work best for this to sort of press it in because of the peanuts) then bake for 20-25 minutes, until the batter’s set and the top is shiny. Be careful not to overbake, the key to a good blondie is undercooked chewiness.
Set the pan on a wire rack and let the blondies cool completely in the pan before removing and cutting in squares.
