Cake'n'Bake Wedensday: Bailey's Blondies

These Blondies are also known as "Monica Geller's" because they came to be due to my uncontrollable need to please people.

What happened was this: on the day of our December meeting we had a few last minute cancellations, which under normal circumstances wouldn't pose a problem, but because of the Secret Santa theme we had in December 2012 it meant that some bakers would not receive their "gift" (i.e. have their word baked) and that simply wouldn't do.

I generally finish work at 5pm, and on club nights aim to get to the Friends Meeting House by 7pm to start setting up. Usually I take my bake club things to work with me in the morning, stay at work until 6:30pm and go straight from there, as work is about halfway between my house and the meeting house. This time, however, to ensure that everyone got their words baked, I left work bang on 5pm, ran to the supermarket to buy some ingredients, ran home, and started baking like a mad-woman! Anyway, I ended up getting a taxi up to the meeting house, and the brownies were still lovely and warm by the time I got there. Thankfully, Ruth had arrived before I did and started setting up shop :-) We then sat and ate some of the gooier brownies with spoons. It was a good day.

Anyway, the words that needed to be baked were Bailey's, Stars and Red. so below is my recipe for Bailey's Blondies with white chocolate stars and red edible glitter to decorate!


Ingredients:
200g slightly salted butter
100g white chocolate
2 medium eggs
135g caster sugar
100ml Bailey's Irish Cream
300g plain flour
Edible glitter and white chocolate stars to decorate (optional)

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 35 - 40 minutes
Makes 16 blondies

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a square tin with baking paper.
2. Put the butter into a small microwavable bowl and melt in the microwave. Place this to one side to cool.
3. Melt the white chocolate, either in the microwave in 20 second blasts, or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, place to one side to cool.
4. Put the eggs and caster sugar into a large mixing bowl and beat until frothy. Beat in the cooled melted butter, Baileys and white chocolate. Finally add the flour to the mixture and fold in until just combined.
5. Pour the batter into the prepare cake tin, then sprinkle on the edible glitter and white chocolate stars, if using, to decorate.
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown in colour, and springy but still moist to touch. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan before turning out and cutting into 16 gorgeous, gooey brownies! (Blondies...!)

Happy Thoughts
x

Banoffee Blondies

I had some leftover caramel and some overripe bananas to use up, so decided to have a little go at making some banoffee blondies, and so glad I did!

Prep time: 15 minutes
Bake time: 40 minutes baking
Makes 16 slices


Ingredients

150g margarine
250g soft brown sugar
150g caramel (I used some left-over, but you could just use caramel from a tin!)
2 ripe bananas
2 medium eggs
200g self raising flour
Milk chocolate shapes, for decoration

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a square baking pan with grease-proof paper.
2. Place the margarine and sugar into a saucepan over a low heat, stirring continuously until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. 
3. Remove the pan from the heat then stir in 100g of the caramel until it has all melted. Leave the mixture to cool slightly whilst you peel and chop the bananas into small chunks.
4. Add the eggs into the cooled mixture, then fold in the flour and bananas. Tip the mixture into the prepared baking tin and spread to the corners with the back of a spoon. Blob bits of the remaining caramel all over the top of the blondie, then sprinkle the milk chocolate shapes over the top. Bake for 40 minutes until golden brown and set.
5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before cutting into slices. (Be sure to eat at least one slice whilst it's still warm!)

Happy Thoughts,

x