Blondies?

Hey family,
Today was my "free" day from having to be at school or at clinic, so I was at home all day grading papers for a class I'm TAing and doing homework. In particular, I was practice scoring the Rorschach Inkblot test for a projective assessment class I'm taking (basically, finding some sort of meaning behind what a person percieves in an ambiguous blob of ink). Personally, I find this test a little silly; however, I wonder if it means something that all day I kept seeing brownies, cupcakes, and cookies in all of the blots :) I find this next pic to be pretty funny myself, but that may just be the psychologist nerd in me coming out.



Okay, okay. This picture is actually kind of gross, but--it does look almost exactly like one of the blots from the test. And, I'd still eat it. :)



Anyway, all of this thinking about sweets, made me really want to make something sweet. So, I found a recipe for Blondies (what I thought were Blonde Brownies) on Smitten Kitchen's blog. I don't think I've actually eaten a Blonde Brownie since I was a little girl; however, I remember my mom making some really good ones. Plus, this was one recipe I already had all the ingredients to at my house! So, I followed it. The whole thing was super simple (seriously, the most time consuming part was melting the butter) and they came out tasting really good--but, they did not remind me at all of the blonde brownies my mom used to make. In fact, they tasted more like chocolate chip cookies. I thought something was fishy when the batter came out more like cookie dough instead of brownie batter. So, my question for you is: Do any of you happen to know what may have gone wrong? Or, happen to have the recipe my mom used to make hers?

I have already scavenged through her old recipe box in Katy, and found that a lot of the good recipes she used to make were unfortunately never written down and must have been from her memory. But I'm hoping she passed this along to someone. Or, even if its not hers, if someone would be willing to share their own recipe for Blonde Brownies. Anyway, here's the recipe for these "Blondies" and a couple pics to follow.

Blondies (Infinitely Adaptable)
Taken from Smitten Kitchen (Originally adapted from How to Cook Everything)
Ingredients:
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Pinch salt
1 cup all-purpose flour

Directions:
1. Butter an 8×8 pan (double the recipe to fit in 9 X 13 pan)
2. Mix melted butter with brown sugar – beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla.
3. Add salt, stir in flour. Mix in any additions (below).
4. Pour into prepared pan. Bake at 350°F 20-25 minutes, or until set in the middle. I always err on the side of caution with baking times — nobody ever complained about a gooey-middled cookie. Cool on rack before cutting them.

Further additions, use one or a combination of:
• 1/2 to 1 cup chopped nuts, toasting them first for even better flavor
• 1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 teaspoon mint extract in addition to or in place of the vanilla
• 1/2 cup mashed bananas
• 1/4 cup bourbon, scotch or other whiskey; increase the flour by one tablespoon
• 2 tablespoons of espresso powder with the vanilla
• Stir 1/2 cup dried fruit, especially dried cherries, into the prepared batter
• Top with a vanilla butter cream or chocolate peanut butter cream frosting


Had to get my cute little Hendrix in there.


See, they really just look like cookies. What gives?