Here’s a quick post about a quick and simple dessert: Pecan Butter Tart Bars. Butter tarts have to be among one of my favourite desserts, but I have a strong dislike for pastry-making and pastry-rolling. That’s what makes these perfect for me – just mix together a quick, buttery base, sprinkle with chopped pecans, and pour a sweet, gooey butter tart filling over everything.

I found these to be delicious. The crust was great – very butter-cookie like, and everything tastes better with pecans. The middle was the ideal gooeyness, but perhaps just a bit too sweet. I might be inclined to spike the filling with a little bourbon next time to even it out (or maybe that’s just an excuse to crack open the bourbon next time I’m baking these).

Pecan Butter Tart Bars
Adapted from La Cuisine d’Helene

BASE
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup cold butter, cubed
3/4 cup chopped pecans

FILLING
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
Pinch salt

Line 9-inch square metal cake pan with parchment paper; set aside.

BASE
In large bowl, mix flour with brown sugar. With pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture is moist and crumbly. Press firmly over prepared pan. Bake in centre of 350°F (180°C) oven for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with pecans and press lightly; bake for 5 minutes.

FILLING
Meanwhile, in bowl, beat butter, sugar and corn syrup until smooth; beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour and pour over base. Bake until darkened and slightly jiggly when shaken, about 20 minutes. Let cool on rack.

Cut into bars.

I only recently found the food blog, La cuisine d’Helene, but it quickly became one of my favourites. Not only do I especially enjoy reading blogs from people around me, but her photos are great and the foods she’s making are always pretty much exactly the type of things I would love to eat.

I can’t imagine someone not wanting to eat a big chunk of this death-by-sugar Caramilk Fudge. I think I gasped aloud when I first saw it on her blog, and I knew instantly that I was going to have to make it. Now, a whole pan of this fudge would be a very dangerous thing for me to have at home, so I decided to make it as a Christmas gift for my dad (of course, keeping a few pieces of it all for myself as well!)

If you do not have a sweet tooth (or two or three or four of them), then do not attempt this fudge. With three cups of sugar and almost one cup of butter, not to mention four whole Caramilk bars, this concoction is sweet and deadly, but in the best possible way!

The only problem I had was that the bottom layer of fudge didn’t always stick to the Caramilk bars, so it made for some tricky cutting. Just be sure to let the fudge warm up a little before cutting (this also helps get all the Caramilk caramel flowing a little). I added some dollops of the chocolate glaze I made for my coconut macaroons to the top, which I enjoyed, but of course, is completely optional.

Caramilk Sugar Fudge
adapted from La cuisine d’Helene
Printable Recipe

2 cups brown sugar
1 can condensed milk
3/4 cups butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
4 Caramilk bars
3-4 oz semi-sweet chocolate (optional)
1 tbsp heavy cream (optional)

1. Microwave brown sugar, condensed milk, and butter for 8-9 min. STIR every 2 minutes.

2. Add icing sugar and vanilla. Mix with handmixer for 4 minutes.

3. Pour half the mixture into a well-greased 8×8 pan.

4. Lay the caramilk bars and pour the rest of the mixture on top and smooth!

5. Heat semi-sweet chocolate until melted. Add heavy cream and stir. Drizzle over fudge, and cool.

So what did we do with all those apples we picked? Well, not a whole lot! Not yet anyway…Thanksgiving is going to use up a bunch of them in a dessert I’m anticipating eagerly.

So while I wait for that, I decided to make a some apple cinnamon buns to tide me over. Good choice! There are many things I loved about these cinnamon buns. The dough comes together easily, though with all that rising, it does take the whole evening. It’s worth the wait though; the end result are warm, tender rolls with a swirl of apple chunks, brown sugar and lots of cinnamon. Of course, they are best right out of the oven, but 20 seconds in a microwave is all it takes to get them just as delicious the next day. I also love how these get baked in a lined muffin tin – it keeps them small (so that you don’t feel as guilty popping one, two, three) in your mouth in one sitting, and the paper-liner keeps any brown sugar/butter/apple filling pressed right up against the roll.

I didn’t make the apple cider glaze that’s included in the original recipe, but just whipped up a plain milk and icing sugar glaze that suited these buns just perfectly. I’m sure the apple cider glaze would be an amazing choice though!

I’d make some changes to the original recipe, which are reflected in the recipe below. I also halved the original recipe to make just 12 rolls, also reflected in the recipe below.

Apple Cinnamon Rolls
adapted from Paula Deen
Printable Recipe

DOUGH
1 cups 2% milk
1/2 tablespoon active dry yeast
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoons salt
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 eggs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

APPLE CINNAMON FILLING
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1/2 cup loosely chopped pecans (optional – I didn’t add these)
1 3/4 cups finely chopped tart apples

DOUGH
1. In a small saucepan or a microwave oven, warm milk to about 110 F.

2. In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in the milk.

3. Add salt and two cups of flour and beat for two minutes. Beat in eggs and butter.
4. Stir in the remaining flour a half cup at a time, beating well after each addition.

5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about five minutes).

6. Place the dough in a large bowl and cover it with a towel. Set in a warm place and allow to rise for 40 minutes or until approximately doubled in volume.
Roll out dough into a long rectangle about 1/4” thick.

7. Brush with about half of the melted butter.

APPLE CINNAMON FILLING
1. To make the filling, in a medium-sized bowl, mix sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, pecans, and apples.

2. Spread the pecan/apple mixture evenly over the dough, leaving about an inch empty on all sides.

3. Roll dough over itself from back to front along the long side of the rectangle to form a log. Slice the log into 12 even pieces

4. Line muffin tin with paper liners and place each piece of the log in a cupcake liner. If they don’t fit, fold the ends together to make a “C” shape. The pieces should come to about the top of the liners.

5. Cover the cupcake tins and set in a warm place to rise for another 40 minutes.

6. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

7. Evenly distribute the remaining ¼ cup of melted butter over the tops of the cupcakes.

8. Bake for 20 minutes or until the tops are golden.

APPLE CIDER GLAZE
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon apple cider

1. In a medium-sized bowl, mix powdered sugar and apple cider until fully combined.

2. Drizzle over cinnamon buns.

I’m not a big fan of date squares. I find them sticky, thick, and just not…vibrant…enough. However, I know that there are some people out there who just love them (hence the reason I made them to begin with), and I think this recipe yields some of the best date squares I’ve had.

They’re not overly sweet thanks to the lemon (some recipes ask for orange zest and juice, which I think just makes them too sweet), and I like the cinnamon and pecans in the oatmeal base and topping.

If you do enjoy date squares, then I think you’ll love these. They’re even better if you serve warm (cut them into pieces, then warm each piece up…trying to cut them into squares while they’re warm will just be messy) with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Oatmeal Date Squares
adapted from Robin Hood: Home Baking

FILLING
3 cups chopped pitted dates
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup water
1/2 cup granulated sugar

BASE & TOPPING
1 3/4 cups oats
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup butter

Grease a 13″ x 9″ pan. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

FILLING
1. Combine dates, lemon zest, lemon juice and water, and sugar in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat , stirring often, until thick and smooth, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool.

BASE & TOPPING
2. Combine oats, flour, brown sugar, chopped pecans, baking soda and cinnamon in a large bowl. Using two knives, a pastry blender or your fingers, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

3. Press half of the mixture (2 1/2 cups) into prepared pan. Spread filling over base. Sprinkle remaining oat mixture on top. Pat down lightly.

4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until light golden. Cool completely in pan on rack, then cut into squares.

Believe it or not, I had never tasted a persimmon up until a few days ago. I’ve been seeing lots of desserts using persimmons around, so when I saw some at the market, I picked them up right away and started scouring the internet for the perfect dessert to make with them.

The first thing I discovered that there are two types of the persimmon fruit: astringent and non-astringent. Astringent persimmons have to be eaten when they are super soft, jellylike in texture. These will be sweeter and juicier and the hachiya persimmon is the most delicious and common of these ones. The non-astringent can be eaten while they’re still firm and they take a long while to get soft and will be milder in their flavour and sweetness. The fuyu persimmon is the popular type of non-astringent.

While this may be sound overly exciting, it’s a good thing I discovered this, because obviously, the type of persimmon you have will affect how it should be cooked! I had bought fuyu persimmons, and finally decided that I wanted to prepare a bread pudding with them, something warm, sweet and gooey to make me happy in these January evenings.

I adapted this persimmon bread pudding from Martha Stewart and ended up with a perfect bread pudding. Instead of using white chocolate, I threw in some milk chocolate chips, and instead of melting the chocolate into the milk sauce, tossed them in separately. This gave the pudding little chocolate chunks and bits of the chocolate sweetness, instead of having it smoothly integrated into the sauce. I also added more cinnamon and nutmeg, as well as raisins. The recipe I’ve included is how I prepared it.

I loved this bread pudding – in fact, I thought it was pretty perfect. I didn’t completely puree the persimmon, and instead cooked them, got them all soft, mashed up a lot of them, but left chunks of the fruit intact. I was left with a light, sweet flavour throughout the pudding and nice pieces of almost peachy-cantaloupe firm fruit scattered in. I loved the amount of cinnamon, and the milk chocolate was great in there as it added a definite sweetness. This isn’t an overly saucy bread pudding, and I loved the non-soggy texture. This is a great base to any bread pudding, and if you wanted to try other fruits in there, it would work wonderfully. I’m thinking peaches next time!

Persimmon-Chocolate Bread Pudding with Raisins
adapted from Martha Stewart

3 Fuyu persimmons, peeled, seeded and cut into small pieces or slices
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 cup sugar, plus more, for baking dish
Unsalted butter, for baking dish
10 slices (about 1 1/2 pounds) 1 1/2-inch-thick day-old or toasted brioche, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
3/4 cup milk chocolate chips
3/4 cup raisins
2 cups milk
3 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small saucepan, combine persimmon, lemon zest, lemon juice, and 1/2 cup sugar; simmer over low heat until sugar is dissolved.

2. Mash heated persimmons until there a lot of the fruit is pureed, making sure to leave some fruit pieces intact.

3. Butter a 2-quart shallow baking dish, and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Place bread in baking dish; sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg. Scatter chocolate chips and raisins over the bread as well.

4. In a medium saucepan, combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar and milk; stir frequently over low heat. Remove from heat once the sugar is dissolved.

5. Whisk eggs in a medium bowl. Slowly whisk warm milk mixture into eggs, being careful not to cook the eggs; stir in persimmon mixture. Pour mixture into baking dish, covering bread completely.

6. Bake until filling sets, about 35 minutes.

When my mother brought me back some Ghirardelli chocolate from the US, I knew I wanted to save it and bake something fantastic with it. At first I thought brownies, but I wanted the chocolate chips to really stand out and thought they might just get lost in too much chocolate. I’ve been hanging on to this cookie for a “Mexican” chocolate chip cookie.

I didn’t use any Mexican chocolate in the cookie, though that is a good idea…suggestions seemed to use 4oz Ibarra chocolate chunks an 8oz dark chocolate chunks. I decided to stick with just my Ghirardelli chips.

These cookies are quite interesting. They have a real depth of flavour and have many notes.They start off like any chocolate chip cookie, but with a oomph of cinnamon. Then there’s a distinct saltiness that plays well with the bitterness of the chocolate and the sweetness of the cookie. As you swallow the cookie, you finally get a hint of the heat of the cayenne pepper – it doesn’t taste spicy, it just feels spicy. All in all, these make for some pretty interesting and unique chocolate chip cookies. I loved the dark chocolate chunks, the sweet cinnamon and the overall flavour depth if them and would enjoy making them again. Their texture was nice too – not very cakey, but nice and dense, like chocolate chip cookies should be!

The only changes I made from the original recipe was to increase the salt and the cayenne pepper amount. I definitely approve of these changes!

Spicy Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Epicurious

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 scant teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
12 oz dark chocolate chunks or chips

1. Using electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then vanilla.

2. Sift next 6 ingredients over butter mixture; beat just until blended. Mix in chocolate chips. Refrigerate dough until cold, at least 1 hour and up to 1 day.

3. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly butter 2 large baking sheets. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto sheets, spacing 1 1/2 inches apart.

4. Bake cookies until golden brown but still soft to touch, about 10 minutes (for crisper cookies, bake 12 minutes). Let stand on sheets 3 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks and cool.

If you like this, you might also like:

Real Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
The Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies
Mayan Chocolate Sparklers

My last post promised you the baked good I made with all my lemon-lime curd, and so here it is! A beautiful friend of mine (hello Patra!) was celebrating her birthday and the best gift I think I could probably give anyone is that of baked treats. Given I had sooo much curd, I figured I should try to make a dessert that incorporates it in some way.

I stumbled upon this recipe, and since I’ve been wanting to give Magnolia’s vanilla cupcakes a try anyway, thought the cupcakes were the perfect thing to bring to a summer birthday BBQ. And they really were!

The vanilla cupcake, but itself, is a really good cupcake. Its texture is light and cakey, as long as it’s served at room temperature. Its vanilla flavour is very present, but still quite delicate. Once the cupcakes were done baking, I cut a cone out of the top (see this recipe for reference), and filled the hollow with a generous tablespoon of the homemade lemon-lime curd. I cut the point off each cupcake cone, and placed the circular top back on top of each cupcake.

As for the frosting, I remembered making a lemon cake that had a frosting I really enjoyed. The lemon flavour was mild enough that it didn’t overpower the vanilla cupcake, but simply played along with it. I whipped up a half-batch of the frosting, and ended up with these delicious cupcakes. People ended up pleasantly surprised with the lemon curd filling, and it seemed these cakes were enjoyed by all. I thought they turned out excellently – the lemon curd in the middle was rich and decadent, but still allowed the vanilla cupcake, which was light and gorgeous in its texture, to stand out. I think these cupcakes are a wonderful summer BBQ dessert!

I only made 12 cupcakes, so I divided the following recipe in half. The recipe I have listed makes 24 cupcakes (frosting and cupcake batter).

Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon-Lime Curd Filling and Lemon-Lime Frosting
via Cupcake Bakeshop, adapted from Cupcakes from The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook
Printable Recipe

VANILLA CUPCAKES
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds.
2. Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beat for 30 seconds between each.
4. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl.
5. Measure out milk and vanilla together.
6. Add about a fourth of the flour to the butter/sugar mixture and beat to combine.
7. Add about one third the milk/vanilla mixture and beat until combined.
8. Repeat above, alternating flour and milk and ending with the flour mixture.
9. Scoop into cupcake papers about half to three-quarters full (depending on whether you want flat or domed cupcakes).
10. Bake for 22-25 minutes at 350 degrees F until a cake tester comes out clean.

LEMON-LIME CURD
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
1 tbsp finely grated lime zest
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature

1. In a medium saucepan, whisk together the lemon juice, lime juice, lemon zest, lime zest, sugar and eggs. Cut the butter into bits and add it to the saucepan.

2. Turn on the heat to medium-low and cook the mixture gently, whisking constantly, until it thickens up enough to hold the marks of the whisk and is just about to come to a simmer. This takes me usually around 20-25 minutes — better to be gentle than to curdle your eggs. The end mixture will be a buttery, creamy light yellow.

3. Remove from the heat and place into a bowl to cool. Strain it if you want to get rid of the zest. Place a piece of plastic wrap on the surface of the curd to prevent a skin from forming as it cools. Store the curd in the fridge.

LEMON-LIME FROSTING
½ cup butter, softened
4 cups confectioner’s (icing) sugar
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp fresh lime juice
¼ cup light (10%) cream

1. Beat together all ingredients until smooth and creamy (I had to add some extra lemon juice to bring it to a spreadable consistency)

TO ASSEMBLE CUPCAKES
1. Using a small pairing knife, cut off the top of the cupcake in the shape of a cone. Flip the top over and cut off the cone.
2. Fill the cavity with a teaspoon or so of curd.
3. Replace top.
4. Frost with frosting.

If you like this, you might also like:

Caramel Apple Cupcakes
Lemon Raspberry Muffins
Lemon Cream Pie with Coconut Crust

Happy Canada Day, fellow Canadians (and 4th of July for all the American readers out there) – I’m posting this right in the middle of the two holidays so that it celebrates both holidays…a little too late for some and a little too early for others.

Rhubarb is just on its way out of season here in Quebec, and strawberries are just on their way in. So, of course, what better dessert than one that combines the two (in the spirit of combining the two holidays as well) than a good strawberry rhubarb crisp?

I had trouble finding a complete recipe that I thought would be perfect, so I combined a bit of a bunch of recipes, and ended up with this, a tart and still sweet crisp. It smells wonderful baking, and tastes even better than it smells. I made a few adjustments with the recipes I found and ended up with a perfect summer dessert – rife with berries, nuts and oats. I love the cinnamon and nutmeg in this dish.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Printable Recipe

FILLING
adapted from Everybody Likes Sandwiches

5 stalks rhubarb, diced
4 c strawberries, quartered
juice of one small lemon
1/3 cup sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

TOPPING
adapted from Sweet Charity Pie

1 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter softened
2/3 cup rolled oats
2/3 cup pecans, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 375F. (I used a 9×13 glass baking dish, but a casserole dish would work for a deeper type of crisp.)

2. Add the rhubarb and strawberries to a large bowl, tossing with the sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and nutmeg. Squeeze in lemon juice and stir to combine. Set aside.

3. In a small bowl combine all the topping ingredients, except pecans. Using a wooden spoon, stir everything until clumps form. Use your hands to scatter the topping evenly over the fruit. Sprinkle top with walnuts. Bake for 45 minutes until the topping is golden and the fruit have created a bubbly sauce. Cool slightly and serve with ice cream.

I saw this recipe on two of my favourite food blogs – I figured if both of them liked it, I was bound to love it. And love it, I did.

It’s no secret that I love citrus desserts…so when I heard rave reviews from star bakers, and since I’ve loved everything that I’ve made from Dorie’s cookbook so far, this recipe climbed the top of my must-bake charts. And thank goodness it did!

I tried the rum drench on a different cake I made, and wasn’t entirely impressed. This entire recipe, due to that, would’ve been stricken from my bake-list, but on faith, I gave the entire (lemon version) a go.

This is a divine and grown-up cake. Its texture is perfect – airy, with a bit of sophisticated crumb, and a dense, chewy top (due to the lemon syrup). The cake itself wasn’t super-lemony (even after I changed the recipe a bit to include lemon juice in the cake itself), but lightly lemony. Combined with the tart lemon glaze on top, it makes for a fantastic, light cake with bits of dense tartness. Just perfect!

If I am to judge desserts by the Soli-proclaimed non-dessert lover Soli, then we have a winner. He ate half of a loaf in one sitting!

And I will eat the other half.
In half a sitting. Or less…

Lemon Drenched Lemon Cakes
adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours

CAKES
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
2 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 plump, moist vanilla bean, split lengthwise, seeds scraped out and reserved, or 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
6 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
2/3 cups heavy cream
2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
zest of two lemons, finely grated
1 stick, plus 7 Tablespoons (15 Tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

SYRUP
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
juice of two lemons

CAKES
1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 8 1/2-4 1/2-inch loaf pans, dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. Even if the pans are nonstick, it’s a good idea to butter and flour them. Place the pans on an insulated baking sheet or on two regular sheets stacked one on top of the other.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

3. Put the sugar and the lemon zest in a large bowl, working with your fingers, rub them together until the sugar is moist and thoroughly imbued with the fragrance of lemon. Add the vanilla bean seeds and work them into the sugar. If you are using vanilla extract, add it later, after you have added the eggs.

4. Add the eggs and whisk them into the sugar, beating until they are thoroughly incorporated. Whisk in the extract (if using), then whisk in the cream, followed by the lemon juice. Continuing with the whisk, or switching to a large rubber spatula, gently stir in the dry ingredients in 3 or 4 additions; the batter will be smooth and thick. Finish by folding in the melted butter in 2 or 3 additions. Pour the batter into the pans, smoothing with a rubber spatula.

5. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean. As soon as the cake goes into the oven, make the syrup. After about 30 minutes in the oven, check the cakes for color- if they are browning too quickly, cover them lightly with foil tents.

SYRUP
1. Making the syrup: Stir the water, two strips of lemon zest and sugar together in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the sugar melts, then bring to a boil.

2. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Pour the syrup into a heatproof bowl and let cool.

1. When the cakes test done, transfer them to a wire rack to cool for 5 (the first one stuck – I suggest leaving them until completely cooled…) minutes before unmolding them and turning them right side up on the rack. Place the rack over a baking sheet lined with wax paper and, using a thin skewer, cake tester or thin-bladed sharp knife, poke holes all over the cakes.

2. Brush the cakes all over with the syrup, working slowly so that the cakes sop it up. Leave the cakes on the rack to cool to room temperature.

My mom brought me some mini M&Ms baking bits from the US after her last visit, so I decided to go straight to the source when it came time to bake with them. I’ve had fairly good experiences baking things that come on the back of product packages (like condensed milk recipes, for example) – I figure the makers of the product have to know how best to use the item they’re selling, right?

Well, it seems M&Ms took the easy way out, and used a fairly standard, and mostly unimpressive blondie recipe on the back of the baking bits package. Not to say it was a bad recipe – oh no! They were very sweet, heavy and rich, just like a blondie should be. However, there was nothing interesting about the recipe, and the flavour was just kind of…flat.

However, the M&Ms made for a very pretty blondie, all studded with rainbows and chocolate. The addition of a dark chocolate, while unorthodox in the world of blondies, was fun. I’m not opposed to using them again in such an application. However, next time, I believe I will use a different blondie recipe – perhaps one with some white chocolate and a bit more saltiness.

Anyhow, for everyone who might like to try their hand at the recipe M&Ms uses, here it is:

M&Ms Rainbow Blondies
adapted from M&Ms

1 cup (2 sticks or 240mL) butter or margarine
1-1/2 cups (360mL) firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups (480mL) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 12-ounce package (1 3/4 cups or 340g) “M&M’s”® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mini Baking Bits
1 cup (240mL) chopped walnuts or pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C or 325°F/165°C for glass pan).

2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy; add egg and vanilla extract.

3. Combine flour and baking soda; add to creamed mixture just until combined. DOUGH WILL BE STIFF.

4. Stir in M&M’s® Chocolate Mini Baking Bits and nuts. Spread dough into a greased 13 x 9-inch (330mm x 230mm) baking pan. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out slightly moist with crumbs. Cool completely before cutting. Store in tightly covered container.