Mince Pie Blondies

It’s officially the start of Bakemas 2019! 🎉 

If it’s your first bakemas here, welcome. It is my annual mini-series in which I show you how to make a various Christmas themed baked goods – perfect if you want to impress your family and friends or if you’re hosting a Christmas party!

To start the festive period off, I thought I’d show you something simple yet impressive and its the perfect alternative to a chocolate brownie, it’s my take on a mince pie blondies.

These blondies are the perfect traybake to make as they can be cut into generous rectangles or bitesize portions – perfect for this time of year (especially as mince pies are everywhere and can be bought pretty easily or you could make your own from scratch for a authentic treat).

They are the perfect balance between dense and cakey, which is perfect this recipe. As with all blondies, the edge will be more baked and cakey compared to the centre which will be slightly more dense.

These are different to my usual recipe for blondies as I wanted them to fit the festive themed more. Starting with the addition of light brown sugar for half of the granulated sugar, for a more caramel flavour and adding some ground mixed spice into the dry ingredients for a slightly spiced flavour.

Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?

Ingredients:

Blondies:

200g White chocolate.

150g butter.

80g granulated sugar.

80g light brown sugar.

190g plain flour.

1/2 tsp ground mixed spice.

1/2 tsp salt.

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract.

Topping:

100g mincemeat (the sweet variation, not savoury).

4/5 mince pies (quartered, halved or whole. Which ever you prefer, I went with quarters).

Method:

Start by doing some prep work, to save you faffing around later on. Preheat your oven to 180C/350F, line your 8 inch square cake tin with some greaseproof/parchment paper, weigh up the ingredients and place a small saucepan filled with some water on the hob over a medium heat.

In a medium heat proof bowl, you’ll want to place the butter and white chocolate. Place the bowl on top of the small saucepan of simmering water and allow the butter and white chocolate to melt, stirring once it starts to melt. *make sure the water isn’t touching the bottom of the bowl*.

Once the butter and white chocolate have melted and are fully combined, you can take it off the heat and add in the granulated sugar and light brown sugar. Make sure you give it all a good mix, so everything is incorporated.

Now it’s the time to add in the plain flour, ground mixed spice and salt. Passing them through a sieve to remove any lumps that may be in the dry ingredients.  Fold it into the white chocolate mixture, as the dry ingredients are incorporate, it will become more of a dough. This is completely normal and the consistency changes later in the recipe.

Next, add in the eggs, either one at a time and beating well in-between each addition or all at once and giving it all a good mix to ensure the eggs are fully incorporated. *this alters the consistency to become looser, which is ideal for pouring, spreading and swirling fillings through*.

Pour the batter into your lined 8 inch square cake tin, levelling off with your silicon spatula or a small cranked palette knife.

At this time you can add blobs of the mincemeat all over the top of the blondie batter, I added it roughly to the centre of each slice but you could add smaller blobs all over, whichever you like really, it’s 100% up to you! *the mincemeat may sink a little as it bakes and this is perfect for when you bite into it and get a bite of mincemeat*.

Place the cake tin into the preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes before removing them from the oven to add the mince pies on top, then you can place back in the oven and bake for a further 5-10 minutes or until a tester comes out almost clean (with only a few crumbs on at best).

Once they are fully naked, remove from the oven and allow to cool fully in the tin. If you don’t intend on cutting them that day, you can place them in the fridge for up-to 2 days. This helps to make them more dense, which is the best way to enjoy these, for me personally.

How you cut them up is up to you, but I went with generously sized rectangles, meaning I get 8 portions but if you cut them in half again and get squares, you’ll get 16 bitesize portions.

That’s all for today 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 soon 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.