Making brown butter is a simple step that adds tons of flavor and helps achieve that signature chewy blondie texture. Once you master the brown butter, everything mixes up easily without a mixer or any special equipment. This recipe makes enough for a crowd, but you could also halve the recipe and bake it in an 8-inch square pan for 25 minutes if you’re ever looking to make less blondies (hey, it could happen).
What Is a Blondie, Anyway?
A blondie is essentially a brownie without the chocolate. It has that dense and chewy texture like a brownie, but it’s more of a butterscotch flavor with brown sugar, butter, and vanilla. Compared to brownies, blondies almost always have mix-ins added, like chocolate chips and chopped nuts.
How to Get that Perfect Blondie Texture
The key to that characteristic blondie texture is lots of brown sugar and to melt the butter. Or, in this case, nutty and fragrant browned butter. For the pumpkin flavor, this recipe calls for just enough pumpkin purée to make them unmistakably pumpkin. You don’t want too much because the extra moisture in pumpkin can make blondies too cakey or too soft. Brownie recipes often use lots of eggs to create a dense and fudgy texture but here, we use only one egg since much of the moisture comes from the pumpkin puree. The recipe does a a lot of the work to achieve the perfect texture for you, so all that’s left for you is to ensure you don’t overmix the batter when adding the flour. Stop mixing as soon as everything is evenly combined, and no dry spots of flour remain.
Canned Pumpkin Saves So Much Time
Canned pumpkin purée saves so much time compared to homemade, and in my experience, works much better for baking. Make sure you’re buying 100% pure pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling, which has sugar, spices, and other ingredients added. I tend to use Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin. I find that it’s not as watery as other brands and is much more flavorful.
Warm Spices Are Essential for Fall
Every year, around August or September, when I notice that the nights and mornings start to feel colder, I rummage through my cupboard and check my spice stock for all the warm spices essential for this time of year. I like to make my own pumpkin pie spice in a big batch, so I have plenty for the whole season. If you don’t feel like mixing your own spice blend, use your favorite store-bought blend.
Customize Your Blondie Mix-Ins
While brownies are often plain, blondies almost always have mix-ins. And the best part is that mix-ins are so easy to customize. Feel free to change out the white chocolate and pecans for any of your favorite fall flavors.
Baking chips: The recipe calls for white chocolate chips, but you can try it with milk or dark chocolate, cinnamon chips, butterscotch chips, or even a mix.Nuts and seeds: I’ve always associated pecans with fall. But toasted walnuts would also be excellent in these. In line with the pumpkin theme, you could try sprinkling the top of the blondies with raw unsalted pumpkin seeds just before baking for a bit of crunch.Dried fruits: dried cranberries wouldn’t be out of place in these pumpkin blondies, or you could add some diced candied ginger.
For Blondie Fans Only
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Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 2 months. Did you love this recipe? Give us some stars below!
