This weeks recipe is for cherry bakewell blondies. If you are unsure or don’t think you’ll like these, trust me. Add these to your list of things to do this weekend, they’ll go down a real treat.
This recipe has been one I’ve worked on for a while, who’d have thought that white chocolate would be so hard, huh? The one thing I did learn in college was about how temperamental white chocolate is. It isn’t really chocolate as it doesn’t contain cocoa solids but we are using it anyway.
The moral of the story, take extra care with white chocolate. It’s super temperamental.
Another thing to remember is, these aren’t brownies. The ratio of butter to sugar is completely different, so they will have different texture/mouthfeel. To be honest, these blondies are more on the cakey side, slightly dense but more cakey, for sure.
I’m using store bought cherry Bakewell’s as they are pretty readily available here in the UK but if you’re outside of the UK you may have a hard time getting these. Feel free to use the next best thing, something like individual frangipane tarts would work pretty well.
As with all my recipes, before you get started, you’ll want to do some prep work. Get your ingredients measured/weighed up, prepare your tin (if you want to, I didn’t but you know your tin) and get any equipment you may need ready. Taking these few extra steps can lower the chance of making a mistake.
Let’s get started shall we?
Ingredients:
200g White chocolate (bars of chocolate if possible, not chocolate chips).
130g Butter.
160g Granulated sugar.
190g Plain flour.
½ tsp Salt.
3 Eggs.
2 tsp Vanilla extract.
60g Cherry jam.
Sliced almonds (as many or as few as you’d like).
Method:
Before you get into making the blondies, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by weighing up all of your ingredients, line your 8 inch square tin and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and get any equipment you intend on using.
Into a bowl, place your butter and white chocolate and melt them over a bain-marie, keep the heat at a medium and no higher (you can also use a microwave on 15 second burst, this isn’t the best method as it can get the chocolate too hot, which isn’t ideal), take extra effort not to get the mixture too hot.
Once the butter and chocolate are melted, add in your sugar straight away and whisk it in until fully incorporated.
Then you can add in your eggs, one at a time. Beating well in-between each addition, the mixture shouldn’t scramble (if this happens, start over).
Next you can add in the plain flour and salt, you’re best to incorporate them using a silicon spatula, this is what I find the best to work with. Once you can’t see a trace of the flour/salt, stop mixing, you don’t want to overmix the batter.
Finally, before you’re done, add in the vanilla and stir that in until fully incorporated.
Pour the blondie batter into your lined 8 inch square cake tin and level it out using your silicon spatula.
Get your cherry jam and add around 5 dollops and swirl it around the tin using a butter knife (you can add a few more dollops if you feel it needs it, I did).
Sprinkle over some sliced almonds, the amount depends on your preference, I went with a fair few but alter it to suit you.
Place into your preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, before removing from the oven to add in the cherry Bakewell’s (I used 5 which had been chopped into quarters), you may need to push them in towards the edge. Place it back in the oven and bake for a further 10-15 minutes or until a tester when inserted comes out clean.
Once baked and out of the oven, allow to cool fully before you try to cut them.
Now they are fully cooled, you can cut them into slices. From this I get 8 generous portions. From the one side, I cut it 4 equal times, then once down the centre, so I get 8 portions. You can cut them however you like, so you get more or less portions, it’s up to you.
That’s all for this week guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back next week with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and Twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below!