Tuesday, March 29, 2011

White Chocolate Hazelnut Blondies

Have you heard about the national bake sale for Japan? It’s happening in multiple cities this Saturday, April 2, and Austin is one of those cities. As soon as word started spreading about organizing a bake sale in Austin, the positive response was overwhelming. There are currently over 100 volunteer bakers and about 40 businesses contributing to the Austin event. There will be five locations around town for the sale, and all donations will go directly to Americares for relief efforts in Japan. Each location will have an incredible variety of both sweet and savory treats on offer, and for anyone who is unable to take part in Saturday’s event, there’s an online giving page with FirstGiving where all donations also go directly to Americares.

To be able to contribute, in some way, to the recovery process in Japan by baking sounded perfect to me. The timing couldn’t have been better since I just received a review copy of the new book Milk and Cookies which is from the New York bakery of the same name. The book will be released on April 20. It presents recipes for cookie dough bases from which many varieties can be made. For instance, there’s vanilla base dough, dark chocolate base dough, oatmeal, peanut butter, and sugar cookie base dough. Each base has a chapter dedicated to it with different additions for several unique cookies. From the peanut butter base dough, you might make peanut butter-milk chocolate bites or peanut butter and jelly cookies. There are also chapters for special cookies like mocha-cherry drops, carrot cake cookies, and ice cream sandwich cookies, family favorites like biscotti and sfogliati crown pastries, and brownies and bars like Kahlua brownies and pecan bars. Last weekend, I decided to test a recipe for white chocolate blondies to find out if they were bake sale-worthy. The cookie dough itself was made with melted white chocolate, and after baking, the blondies were covered with a white chocolate glaze. The cut bars were chewy, and there were hazelnuts and chocolate chips to add crunch.

First, a pound of white chocolate, and yes, that’s a lot but this recipe makes a lot of blondies, was melted with butter. I used Callebaut white chocolate disks. Next, flour, baking powder, and salt were combined and set aside. Six eggs were mixed in a stand mixer, sugar was added, and then the cooled white chocolate mixture was incorporated. The dry ingredients were added, and last chocolate chips and toasted, chopped hazelnuts were stirred into the dough. The dough was baked in a large sheet pan and allowed to cool before the blondies were topped with a glaze made with cream and more white chocolate.

As a white chocolate fan, these blondies were a big hit with me. The white chocolate in the dough gave the crumb of the bars a dense but tender texture. The semisweet chocolate chips and hazelnuts added crunch and kept the bars from being too sweet. These will definitely be contenders for what I bring to the bake sale, but I have my eye on that peanut butter cookie chapter too.



32 comments:

  1. I kid you not, I am going to make these tonight. divine!
    Miss T
    x

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  2. This version looks terrific! I am a big fan of blondies.

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  3. I love blondies, i love austin, so community driven..glad your involved
    sweetlife

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  4. Your blondies are perfect and what a wonderful initiative! Have a wonderful day at the bake sale :)

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  5. I love blondies and yours look just perfect! I'n sure they'll sell very fast!

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  6. Daaahling, with these gorgeous blondies I think you may be able to save Japan all by yourself, these are going to be a huge hit!
    *kisses* HH

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  7. A great idea, Lisa! And your brownies will make lots of money for sure. They're perfect. (Your photos are marvelous!)
    Milk and Cookies sounds like a great cookbook too.

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  8. Randy would go nuts over these. I always wonder how I would ever find another baking cookbook interesting since I have so many, but this one sounds terrific.

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  9. By far the best looking blondies I've seen!

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  10. Very stylish blondies and the taste must be divine.

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  11. Those just might be the best looking blondies I've ever seen!!! I think you might just be able to fund the entire recovery effort on those babies alone!!!

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  12. Go Austin!!! Those brownies look absolutely delectable, Lisa. I'm not usually a fan of blonde brownies but I must admit, I'd be more than willing to give these a try.

    Thanks for sharing...Have FUN at the bake sale. I'm sure which ever you choose they will be a huge hit!!!

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  13. I've not seen such beautiful looking blondies in a while. I'm not a fan but my daughter loves them! Am going to be making these soon.

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  14. Blondies with white chocolate! These look gorgeous and hope they tasted so too :) Beautiful texture and lovely color.

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  15. Now, these are some kicked up blondies. Love all the little extras to them, which make them even more special.

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  16. these are one of the most beautiful blondies I've seen for quite a while. love the white chocolate topping.
    Thanks fro sharing Lisa

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  17. Hopefully, second times a charm. I just wanted you to know how much I like this recipe. It looks and sounds delicious. I hope you have a wonderful evening. Blessings...Mary

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  18. Those white chocolate blondies are a pure delight!

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  19. Can I tell you that just looking at these blondies made my heart skip a beat? With excitement. I wish I lived near Austin so that I could go pick some of these up!

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  20. That is such a great event for Japan. This is a nice blondie.

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  21. Lisa...wow...I am a huge blondie lover and hope I can try these out! They look wonderful! Can't wait for the Milk & Cookies book, it's one of my favs.

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  22. MMMMMMMMMM,..;these white chocolate blondies look so huge, pretty & ooh so appetizing too, dear Lisa!
    Excellent bars!

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  23. A white chocolate cookie dough- that sounds interesting and delicious! Me thinks these will be very popular at the bakesale. Expect a sellout!

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  24. you don't do a lot of sweets, lisa, but when you do, you clearly knock it out of the park. tasty, tasty work.

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  25. I've never made blondies before and this one looks perfect. This recipe is beyond delicious and would certainly try and recreate it. So beautiful and rich!

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  26. Oh yes, they sure do look good don't they. You've got this one nailed Lisa, love a good blondie :)

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  27. A pound of white chocolate! That seems like a lot, but when you imagine creating tons of blondies, maybe it's not enough. Because it's so sweet, white chocolate is great with the darker flavors in there from other chocolate and nuts. Good one. Hope the sale went well!

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  28. Looks like your blondies have the perfect texture! I just did some blondie reviewing and I could go for some more blondies in my life:-)

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  29. Mmmmmmm..... wow! And boy is that a book for me! Scrumptious!

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