Our resident baker and well-know member, Tracey Ebbs, shares some of her top recipes that you can make to help alleviate the boredom at home and provide you and your family with a tasty treat!
This week:
Bakewell Blondies
I love the flavours of a Bakewell tart, but I really can’t be bothered to faff around with making pastry and baking it blind and all that malarkey!
This is a much simpler way of creating that great flavour combination without the fuss. The traditional version calls for raspberry jam but you can use whatever you prefer. My personal favourite is black currant as I love the slight tartness and I think it goes really well with the almond.
A good blondie is like a brownie, it should be slightly gooey and oozing in the centre although if you do overcook it and end up with a cake-like texture don’t worry as it will still taste great.
The white chocolate chips are optional but I like them as they give an extra texture and flavour to the traybake. Likewise, the almond extract is optional but just gives the flavour a boost.
Ingredients
250 g Unsalted Butter (melted)
125 g White Granulated Sugar
125 g Light Brown Sugar
3 Medium Eggs
1 tsp Almond Extract (optional)
100 g Ground Almonds
200 g Plain Flour
1 tbsp Cornflour
200 g White Chocolate Chips (optional)
250 g Raspberry Jam (or any other flavour)
50 g Flaked Almonds
Method
- Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan and line a 9×9″ square tin with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, add your Melted butter and Sugars and beat till smooth.
- Add in the Eggs and Almond Extract and beat again till smooth.
- Add in the Flour, Ground Almonds and Cornflour and beat till a thick blondie mixture is made – it really doesn’t take long to create this mixture.
- Add in your White Chocolate Chips and fold through.
- Pour the mixture into the tin, and spread. Dollop on the jam, and lightly swirly through the blondie mixture.
- Sprinkle over the Flaked Almonds.
- Bake the Blondies in the oven for 30 minutes, or until there is an ever so slight wobble in the middle. (see notes below)**
- Leave the Blondies to cool in the tin till cool.
- One top tip – to help firm them up before cutting, put them in the fridge for an hour or so once they have cooled – it creates a lovely fudgy texture.
** Check the bake from 25 minutes onwards as some ovens run hotter, there should be a slight wobble in the middle when they’re done. These took 30 minutes in my oven but can still take up to 45 minutes.