White chocolate and custard cream browned butter blondies

Well that's certainly a mouthful isn't it?

Last week I was thinking about how oreos are often incorporated into brownies which led me to ponder whether custard creams could be put into blondies. After a quick google image search I noticed nobody had done it. So I made it happen.

After remembering how tasty my last blondies were, I adapted the recipe to use custard creams instead of raspberries. As the recipe link no longer works (why would you remove such a great recipe bbc?) I'll type it up at the end of the post.

I really enjoyed the texture of these blondies. They have that essential crispy, cracked surface and fudgy/chewy texture inside you'd expect from a good blondie or brownie but also an added crunch from the custard cream biscuit chunks. Then there are the delicious, smooth chunks of white chocolate just to punch up the sweet-factor even further. Basically, if you love sweet, vanilla based bakes then you'll love these. They're a real treat.

I also don't think I can go back to making blondies without browning butter. It really does add something. Plus the sweet, biscuity smell of butter while it's browning is pretty addictive. Yay for butter!

White chocolate and custard cream browned butter blondies

Recipe originally from bbc good food's website

200g unsalted butter
150g white chocolate chopped into chunks (I used Lindt as it has a lovely vanilla flavour)
300g light muscovado sugar
3 large eggs (I used duck eggs)
200g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp good quality vanilla extract
100-125g custard cream sandwich biscuits, broken into chunks

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and line a 25 x 22cm tin. (I didn't have the correct sized tin so I used a smaller oblong one and a 7inch square sandwich tin.) Melt the butter in a saucepan and cook gently for about 5 minutes until the white solids turn golden and the butter starts to smell biscuity and sweet. Side aside to cool for 5 minutes. Add half of the white chocolate to the melted butter and set aside again for a few minutes, stirring until combined. Meanwhile, beat together the sugar and eggs for a couple of minutes until thick and pale. Add the flour, salt, vanilla extract and cooled butter mixture and mix together. 

Pour into the tin (or tins) then scatter custard creams and white chocolate chunks on top, pressing them in slightly. Bake for 40-45 minutes until it has a golden crust and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out relatively clean. (Since I used smaller tins my blondies cooked quicker, about 35-40 minutes.) Leave to cool in the tin. It's tempting to dive in straight away but they cut so much easier once cool.

Banana blondie fail

I was so excited about these blondies which made it all the more devastating that they didn't particularly work.

 
The first disaster was burning the caramel for the nutty brittle (why do I find this so hard?! It was like the tarte tatin incident all over again) but thankfully the second batch worked. I'm blaming the cooker as I'm convinced it's not level which caused the caramel to cook quicker on one side.

Disaster number two were the eggs. I had already mashed my bananas and cracked the egg on top. BUT...........the egg was off. Eugh! I had only poured it down the side so I rescued as much of the banana as I could which hadn't touched the egg and thankfully I had one extra banana to spare.

The rest of the mixture came together absolutely fine and I whacked it in the oven. The recipe stated that it should be golden and "wobbly-set". I thought it looked too wobbly so I left it in the oven for an extra ten minutes with the top covered with a sheet of baking parchment to stop the surface from burning.

Despite my gut instinct to leave it in longer I took it out in fear of over-baking. Blondies and brownies are deceptively tricky aren't they? They almost need to err on being a little undercooked to have the chewy, squidgy element as they're no use if they're over baked.

 

Well, mine were practically raw in the middle. After leaving them to cool and rescuing the edges (which tasted lovely, although very sweet) I put the rest back in the oven, hoping I could make it slightly more edible. This may have worked had I not wandered off and completely forgotten about it, resulting in this burnt mess.....

More brownie than blondie wouldn't you agree? 

Saying that, it still tasted quite nice (although crunchy) so the recipe may be worth revisiting. I'm glad I persevered with the caramel as it brought a lovely sticky banoffee flavour with the bananas to the blondie. If any of you have caramel "issues" like me, whatever you do, DO NOT put the hot pan of caramel in cold water (unless you fancy having shards of caramel in your face although I wouldn't recommend it). Set it aside on the hob for a few minutes before filling it with warm-hot soapy water. After leaving it to soak for a bit it will dissolve and wipe clean no bother. 

Come on, make me feel better. Who else has had a baking fail recently?

Raspberry and white chocolate blondies Take 2 and oaty biscuits

Determined to find the "perfect" blondie, I surfed the web for another recipe. This recipe from BBC Good Food popped up and although the reviews were quite hit and miss I gave it a go.

They may not be as photogenic as the last blondies, but flavour-wise I definitely preferred these. I loved the golden, crumbly crust and the melt-in-the-mouth almost fudgy inside with gooey chocolate chunks and juicy raspberries. I've talked you into making these haven't I? The only thing to note is that I didn't have the correct size tin so I had to use a slightly smaller one. I still put it in at the same temperature but covered the top of the tray with baking parchment for the last 10 minutes. I also had enough left over batter to fill 4 little bun cases.

I think browning the butter helped with the fudgy flavour, although it did cause me to have a near freak out as I thought I had burnt rather than browned it as there were loads of funny bits in it. I ended up melting more butter, which I didn't need in the end, so I decided to make oaty biscuits with it.

I had forgotten how tasty these syrupy oat biscuits were. We used to make these a lot with Mum when we were little as the recipe is very easy. It's the perfect type of homemade biscuit to have in the tin for when visitors come past. Unfortunately by the time I had finished making these it was late and I had lost all energy to take a good photograph. No attempt to hide the biscuits with the slightly burnt edges or remove the crumb in the foreground!

Oat Shortie Biscuits
Recipe from Mum's little baking book

50g (2oz) lard
50g (2oz) marg
100g (4oz) sugar (I used caster)
1 tsp syrup
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp boiling water
100g (4oz) self-raising flour
100g (4oz) porrage oats

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Since I already had roughly 4oz of melted butter I didn't bother with the lard. I then added the sugar and stirred in the syrup, soda and boiling water. Do not bring to the boil. Add the oats and flour and mix well. Pack together in in teaspoonfuls (or bigger if you want larger biscuits) and place on the tray. I think I had around 8 on a tray, and made roughly 20 biscuits in total. I also added more syrup to the mixture as it wasn't sticking together very well. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

Raspberry and white chocolate blondies Take 1

After tasting an amazing raspberry and white chocolate blondie at a cafe last weekend I was determined this week to make my own. I used the same recipe as the last time I made blondies which is from Baking Mad. Instead of caster sugar I used soft light brown sugar and I added the raspberries instead of macadamia nuts (last time I used ground almonds which tasted great.)

Although these looked really pretty I didn't think they tasted as good as the last time I made them. They certainly weren't bad but just didn't quite hit the spot. Therefore I had to make more blondies the next day using a different recipe to compare! I really liked how these blondies photographed though.

Best blondies so far!

I've been promising the girls at work for a while that I would bake them some white chocolate brownies/blondies. Tomorrow they shall get some! I'm very pleased with them. This is the third time I've tried this recipe and these are definitely the best I've made. Instead of macadamia nuts I used ground almonds and I cut out the salt as I didn't like how it tasted in my last batch. I also used baking white chocolate instead of milkybar (which I used last time) and I preferred the flavour.

January baking creations

Kathleen's birthday cake

I made a pink chequer board cake for my cousin Kathleen's birthday with fondant icing decorations and marshmallows.

I wasn't there to take photos of the cake's chequer board interior, however Kathleen's fiance Thomas has allowed me to show the photos he took. Thanks Thomas!

The birthday girl admiring her cake.

It may not be a perfect chequer board but it's pretty good for a first attempt!

Chocolate buns with marshmallow filling

I made these with my friend Sarah. We discovered that it is a bad idea to put marshmallows in the bun mixture before it's cooked (in other words we should have followed the recipe!) It was fixable though; we put melted marshmallows in the crater holes that were left in the cooked buns and then covered it up with chocolate buttercream icing.

White chocolate brownies/ Blondies

  These were yummmmmmmmy.