Peanut Butter & Honey Snickerdoodle Squares

Blondies are like brownies without the chocolate.  For some of you, this may sound horrendous.  Awful.  Why would one even invent such a thing?!?!  Dumb.

I think it sounds awesome.  Blondies require no melting of chocolate in double-boilers.  No hunting down various types of chocolate.  None of this business.  For these and other reasons, I have three favorite blondie recipes.

1. Brown Eyed Baker’s Snickerdoodle Blondies
2. Smitten Kitchen’s ever-adaptable Blondies
3. Peanut Butter Blondies from The Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookbook

These are all recipes I’ve made multiple times, and they’ve all been pretty forgiving.  One time I underbaked my Snickerdoodle Blondies, and ended up with a fairly gooey cinnamon-sugar mess in the middle of the pan.  We still ate them all.  One time my friends and I added too much Kahlua to our SK blondies.  We still ate them all.  In college, my roommates and I made PB blondies at all hours of the night and day, with ridiculous amounts of chocolate chips.  And every time, we still ate them all.

In case you were curious (I was), if you combine blondie #1 and #3 and add some honey, you end up with these:

Now, I make these things sometimes to experiment for you so you don’t have to do the experimenting.  This was a successful experiment, but one that I may do differently next time.  Adding honey and cutting down on the granulated sugar in the PB Blondies recipes gave them a different texture…they were defs lighter and more cakey.  Or maybe I just beat them more than necessary?  Not sure.  This isn’t a bad thing, by any means.  It means you can cut bigger squares and call it an afternoon snack and still be hungry an hour later.  However…I really like dense blondies.  Like, I really really like them.  I suppose you could say I have a crush on them.

To create dense blondies with the same flavor next time, I’ll probably try using honey-roasted peanut butter.  This way, I can still use the proper amount of sugar and avoid any added fluffiness.

Ok ok ok…texture differences aside, the flavors in these babies are lovely.  I LOVE peanut butter and honey (you could add bananas to that and I would call it a meal).  And the cinnamon-sugar topping really warms up the blondie and accentuates the honey flavor.  For some reason, I’m also a fan of peanut butter plus cinnamon-sugar.  (I see peanut butter cinnamon rolls in my future.)

P.S. I’m watching Pretty Woman right now.  So I’m just going to go ahead and give you the recipe already, so I can get back to watching Julia Roberts try to eat escargots.  “Slippery little suckers.”  Teehee.

Makes about 20 squares (one 9×13 inch pan)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (= 8 TBS) unsalted butter, softened but still cool
1 cup creamy (or crunchy) peanut butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup honey
3 large eggs plus 1 large egg white, at room temperature
1/2 TBS vanilla extract

2 TBS granulated sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325ºF with a rack in the middle position.  Grease a 9×13 inch glass baking pan, set aside.
2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.  Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and peanut butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Add the brown sugar and the honey and beat at medium speed until smooth and combined, about 2 minutes more.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.  Add the egg white last.  Add the vanilla and beat until combined.
4. Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the peanut butter mixture and stir with a rubber spatula just until combined.  Pour the batter into the prepared dish, spreading evenly.  Combine the granulated sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and sprinkle it evenly over the top of the batter.
5. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the blondies comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.  Don’t worry if the topping looks a little dark, it’s not burned.  The cinnamon-sugar tends to brown easily (so do baked goods with honey in them).  Let cool in pan on a wire rack for about 30 minutes, then cut into squares with a thin sharp knife.  Yums!

Recipe adapted from The Ultimate Peanut Butter Book and inspired by Brown Eyed Baker

What kind of blondie combination should I try next?  I’ve also joined the Sweets for a Saturday party going on over at Sweet as Sugar.  Be sure to check out some of the other awesome treats in the group…I know there are plenty I can’t wait to try.  Thanks for reading, happy baking!