Coconut Chocolate Chip Blondies

When it comes to fall (or early/pre-fall) baking, I’m usually all about the apples. But at the same time, I also like to mix it up a little. Since I hadn’t done anything with coconut for awhile, I decided to whip up a batch of coconut chocolate chip blondies.

This recipe is incredibly tasty and incredibly easy. You don’t need to bust out any fancy tools or spend more than 10-15 minutes putting these blondies together. Just have a couple of mixing bowls and spoons on hand, and you’ll be all set.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Blondies
Recipe from Brown Eyed Baker

Ingredients:

1 cup AP flour
1/8 tsp salt
4 ounces unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1 cup chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease and flour an 8×8 baking pan.
2. Combine the flour and salt; set aside.
3. Stir together the melted butter and brown sugar until smooth; beat in the egg and vanilla extract until well-blended.
4. Slowly beat in the flour mixture until blended; then stir in the coconut and chocolate chips.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan; use a rubber spatula (or the back of a spoon you’re already using if you’re feeling lazy, which is perfectly okay) to smooth the top.
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until set in the center but still soft. Cool completely (at least one hour, but two would be better) before cutting and serving.

Sep 8

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Brownies

Wowsa. It’s been over a month since I’ve posted on here, so now that the weather is cooling down, I’ll have to get myself back into the swing of baking. I know I’ve mentioned before that I tend to bake less frequently during the summer, and I basically spent most of August avoiding the oven and indulging in frozen desserts instead. But just this past week, the weather suddenly turned cooler, and in a really nice way. And it was just enough motivation to get myself back into the kitchen and do a nice amount of baking.

While I tackled several different recipes over the past week, the first one I’d like to share is something simple yet tasty. These brownies are really a cinch to whip up. As is the case with most of the brownie recipes I like to make, this batch requires nothing more than a couple of mixing bowls and some basic ingredients. There’s no need to bust out the fancy tools or spend more than 15-20 minutes putting everything together. Plus, these brownies are really adaptable to a variety of mix-ins, so if peanuts and pretzels aren’t your thing, feel free to substitute something else.

Here’s to what will hopefully be a busy month of baking and a glorious start to fall.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Brownies

Ingredients:
1 cup AP flour
1 stick of butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
½ cup light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 egg
¼ cup peanut butter, plus more for topping
½ cup crushed pretzels
½ cup chopped peanuts

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8×8 baking pan and set aside.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the cooled melted butter and sugars until smooth. Beat in egg.
4. Mix in ¼ cup peanut butter, then slowly incorporate the flour and cocoa mixture, mixing well until fully blended into the wet ingredients.
5. Stir in the pretzels and peanuts.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan (it will be thick). Using the back of a spoon, swirl additional peanut butter on top of the brownie batter as desired.
7. Bake for 27-32 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let the brownies cool completely in their pan (at least 60 minutes but better to wait two hours to be safe) before cutting into them.

Aug 1

White Chocolate Cranberry Blondies

I have something shocking to admit: I haven’t been in much of a baking mood lately. I know—blasphemy, but this tends to happen to me during the summer. Still, I did decide this week to whip up a batch of blondies, and I’m glad I did, because they were the perfect accompaniment to the raspberry swirl ice cream I’ve been devouring like a madwoman.

These blondies are basically your classic Cranberry Bliss Bar without the frosting. If you want to add frosting, you can find the recipe here. But I felt that these were more than sweet enough without it (thank you, white chocolate).

These blondies strike that perfect balance of being chewy yet light; and the cranberries add a nice touch of tartness to a sweet white chocolate-infused batter. Best of all, they’re really easy to throw together. My batch took less than 15 minutes from start to finish, including cleanup. And aside from tasting great, they’re also pretty to look at. If you’re in the mood for a quick summertime treat, these blondies will be sure to hit the spot.

White Chocolate Cranberry Blondies
Recipe from RecipeGirl

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter
1 and 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 and 1/4 cups AP flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (the original recipe said 1/8 of a teaspoon, but I like a slightly stronger cinnamon essence; you can also add a pinch of nutmeg if you enjoy that flavor profile)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
6 ounces white chocolate, coarsely chopped (or you can use white chocolate chips)

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13×9-inch baking pan with nonstick spray and set aside.
2. Melt the butter for one minute in the microwave; stir in brown sugar and then cool to room temperature.
3. Beat or whisk in the eggs and vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
5. Gradually add the dry mixture to the butter mixture.
6. Stir in the cranberries and chopped chocolate. Note that your batter will be thick.
7. Spread your batter into the prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
8. Let the blondies cool in their pan completely before cutting and serving.

Jul 16

White Chocolate Strawberry Blondies

I’m clearly on a blueberry, strawberry, and white chocolate kick. Summertime just does that to me I guess. I used my go-to white chocolate blondie recipe as a base for these bars and added in the strawberries because, well, I’m in the midst of a love affair with strawberries and I might as well celebrate it.

I love the contrast of the slightly tart and tangy strawberries with the sweetness of the white chocolate. Even though I’m not one of those people who shuns white chocolate ’cause it’s too sweet, I definitely appreciate the balance of flavor the strawberries bring to the mix. Incidentally, you could substitute strawberries for another tart fruit, like raspberries, and get similarly delicious results.

White Chocolate Strawberry Blondies

Ingredients:
1 cup AP flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup white chocolate chips or chopped white chocolate
1 cup strawberries, chopped

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease an 8×8 baking pan.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. Using either your stovetop or microwave, combine the butter and white chocolate to melt. If using your stovetop, put butter and white chocolate in either a double boiler or heavy duty saucepan and melt on low heat while stirring frequently. If using the microwave, put butter and white chocolate in a small bowl and melt on 50% power for 30-second increments until butter is melted and white chocolate is mostly melted. Use a fork or whisk to get the chocolate nice and smooth.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together your eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Add in the white chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth and well-combined.
5. Whisk or stir in the flour mixture until incorporated.
6. Stir in strawberries. (Quick note: If you’re washing your berries on the spot, make sure to pat them dry before adding to batter. You’ll want to eliminate as much moisture as possible before baking.)
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let the blondies cool completely (at least 90 minutes) in the pan before cutting into bars.

Jul 10

White Chocolate Blueberry Blondies

After having achieved success with the white chocolate blondies I whipped up not so long ago, I decided to take that same recipe but incorporate one of my favorite summertime fruits: blueberries. I love the contrast of the sweet white chocolate and slightly tart, tangy blueberries. These babies were absolutely amazing. I actually got impatient and dug into them when they hadn’t fully cooled, which made them kind of gooey—but in a good way. In fact, you could just as easily serve these warm in a bowl, call your concoction a white chocolate blueberry pudding, and top it off with vanilla ice cream for contrast. Yum.

White Chocolate Blueberry Blondies

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease an 8×8 baking pan.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. Using either your stovetop or microwave, combine the butter and white chocolate to melt. If using your stovetop, put butter and white chocolate in either a double boiler or heavy duty saucepan and melt on low heat while stirring frequently. If using the microwave, put butter and white chocolate in a small bowl and melt on 50% power for 30-second increments until butter is melted and white chocolate is mostly melted. Use a fork or whisk to get the chocolate nice and smooth.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together your eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Add in the white chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth and well-combined.
5. Whisk or stir in the flour mixture until incorporated.
6. Stir in blueberries. (Quick note: If you’re washing your blueberries on the spot, make sure to pat them dry before adding to batter. You’ll want to eliminate as much moisture as possible; otherwise, your blondies may not bake up as well.)
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let the blondies cool completely in the pan before cutting into bars. I recommend waiting a good 90 minutes to make sure they’re nice and firm. Worst case, if you’re impatient like me, you’ll get a gooier “blueberry blondie pudding” if you choose to dig in earlier. And trust me, that’s not such a bad thing.

Jul 8

Strawberry Crumb Bars

Remember those awesome blueberry crumb bars I made a few days ago? They were so delicious I just had to try a strawberry version. The great thing about this recipe is that it’s fairly easy and pretty adaptable to your favorite fruit. You could try it with raspberries, peaches…the list goes on and on.

Strawberry Crumb Bars
Recipe slightly adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:
1 and ½ cups granulated sugar, divided into 1 cup and ½ cup
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups AP flour
1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons orange juice (I used fresh-squeezed from an orange, but any type of OJ will work just fine; you could also use lemon juice if you prefer that flavor profile)
4 cups fresh strawberries, chopped into small pieces
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, optional
4 teaspoons cornstarch

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9×13 inch pan and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup of the sugar with the flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. (Note: This might take awhile, but keep working at it—you want to make sure the butter gets nice and blended.) Your dough will be crumbly.
4. Pat half of the dough into your prepared pan.
5. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch, and orange juice. Gently mix in the chopped strawberries and chocolate chips, if you’re using them. Sprinkle the strawberry mixture evenly over the crust, and then crumble the remaining dough over the berry layer.
6. Bake for about 45-55 minutes, or until the top gets slightly brown and an inserted toothpick comes out relatively clean.
7. Let the bars cool completely in the pan before cutting in. Two hours should do it.

Jul 4

Blueberry Crumb Bars

One of my favorite things about summer is the abundance of fresh blueberries available to big time fans like me. I’m happy to throw blueberries in just about anything – yogurt, ice cream, muffins, cake…So when I stumbled upon this easy recipe for blueberry crumb bars, I knew I had to give it a shot.

These bars are awesome—moist, crumbly, and just the right of gooey in the middle. They’re the perfect summertime treat, and I have a feeling I just might have to make them again before moving on to all things apple in the fall.

Blueberry Crumb Bars
Recipe slightly (barely) adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9×13 inch pan and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup of the sugar with the flour and baking powder.
3. Mix in salt and lemon zest (if you’re using it).
4. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. (Note: This might take awhile, but keep working at it—you want to make sure the butter gets nice and blended.) Your dough will be crumbly.
5. Pat half of the dough into your prepared pan.
6. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust, and then crumble the remaining dough over the berry layer.
7. Bake for about 45-55 minutes, or until the top gets slightly brown and an inserted toothpick comes out relatively clean (you’ll get blue streaks from the blueberries even if the bars are done).
8. Let the bars cool completely in the pan before cutting. I’d say wait a good two hours since the blueberry filling makes them gooey to begin with.

Jul 1

White Chocolate Blondies

Some people aren’t fans of white chocolate. But I am—big time. And since I hadn’t baked with white chocolate in awhile, I decided to whip up some easy blondies.

These bars really are a cinch to make. The only tricky part is keeping an eye on the white chocolate while it’s melting. Of course, the best way to melt white chocolate is to use a double boiler, but I got lazy/was in a bit of a hurry and chose the microwave method instead. And you know what? These blondies didn’t suffer one bit.

White Chocolate Blondies

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease an 8×8 baking pan.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. Using either your stovetop or microwave, combine the butter and 1 cup of white chocolate to melt. If using your stovetop, put butter and white chocolate in either a double boiler or heavy duty saucepan and melt on low heat while stirring frequently. If using the microwave, put butter and white chocolate in a small bowl and melt on 50% power for 30-second increments until butter is melted and white chocolate is mostly melted. Use a fork or whisk to get the chocolate nice and smooth.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together your eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Add in the white chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth and well-combined.
5. Whisk or stir in the flour mixture until incorporated.
6. Stir in 1/4 cup white chocolate and bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips.
7. Pour batter into prepared pan. If desired, sprinkle some more of the dark chocolate chips on top.
8. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let the blondies cool completely in the pan before cutting into bars.

Jun 14

Chocolate Butterscotch Crumb Bars

I like my job. I really do. But what I don’t like about my job is the fact that people tend to wait till the very last possible minute to ask me for things.

Now normally I pride myself on having a pretty good work ethic and going out of my way to be helpful. And I’m definitely not the type of person to put things off till the following day if there’s any chance of getting the job done on the spot. But when you email me at the very last second asking for something that will take at least 30 minutes of my time, you’re putting me in a position where I might be late picking up my child from daycare. And being late to daycare is bad for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that you actually get charged by the minute for not showing up on time.

A few weeks ago, I almost didn’t make it to the center on time. In fact, the only reason I got there about a minute shy of closing is that I was more than a little bit liberal with some of our local traffic laws. And why was I rushing in the first place? Oh yeah, because someone needed something from me at the very last possible minute, kind of like what happened last night.

Okay, rant over. I’m sure I’m not the only working person who goes through this, right?

Anyway, moving on…let’s talk about these yummy chocolate crumb bars. I decided to bake something for my coworkers—not the ones who cause me stress and aggravation by demanding things at the last minute, but rather the ones I actually like. These bars are really tasty and relatively simple to whip up. The original recipe didn’t include butterscotch chips, but I’m a big fan of the chocolate-butterscotch flavor combo and decided to mix things up a bit. I like the fact that these bars get nice and gooey in the center. They’re a great snack to have on hand or share with people you like. You can also keep some in your car in case you get pulled over by a local police officer wanting to know why you were going 50 in a 30 mile per hour zone and you need some sort of impromptu bribe. (For the record, I didn’t actually get pulled over en route to daycare. But it could’ve happened. Multiple times over. Thank you, procrastinating coworkers. Okay, maybe my rant wasn’t quite over.)

Chocolate Butterscotch Crumb Bars
Original recipe can be found here

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, softened
1 and 3/4 cups AP flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips, divided
1 cup of butterscotch chips, divided
1 can (14 oz) of sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13 x 9-inch baking pan.
2. Beat the butter in a large mixing bowl or in a stand mixer until creamy. Mix in the flour, sugar, and salt until crumbly.
3. With or floured or greased fingers (I sometimes spray a bit of cooking spray onto my fingers), press 2 cups of the crumb mixture into the bottom of your prepared baking pan; reserve remaining mixture for topping.
4. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.
5. While the mixture is baking, combine 1/2 cup semisweet chips, 1/2 cup butterscotch chips, and condensed milk in a small saucepan.
6. Warm over low heat, stirring until smooth. Stir in vanilla extract. Spread over hot crust.
7. Stir remaining chips into reserved crumb mixture and use your hands to sprinkle over chocolate filling.
8. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until center is set.
9. Cool in pan on wire rack before cutting into bars.

May 24

Chocolate Cinnamon Oatmeal Bars

Oops. I realized I made these awhile ago but never got around to posting the recipe. Luckily I remembered to take a picture, so better late than never I suppose.

Anyway, I’m a big fan of repurposing easy recipes, especially when they come out tasting delicious. So when I needed something to throw together for an impromptu neighborhood gathering, I decided to revisit the oatmeal raisin bars I made a little while back. This time, however, I decided to forego the raisins in favor of chocolate and cinnamon chips. The end result? Pure magic in every bite.

Chocolate Cinnamon Oatmeal Bars
Recipe slightly adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pan
3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup AP flour
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup cinnamon chips

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Butter an 8×8 square baking pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two sides, and butter the paper.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the butter, sugars, egg, salt, and cinnamon until smooth. Add flour, oats, and chips; fold in just until combined.
4. Spread batter in prepared pan, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely in pan.
5. Once cool, use the parchment paper to lift the bars onto a work surface for cutting.

Busy Baking Mama

Category Archives: Brownies and Bars

Coconut Chocolate Chip Blondies

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Brownies

White Chocolate Cranberry Blondies

White Chocolate Strawberry Blondies

White Chocolate Blueberry Blondies

Strawberry Crumb Bars

Blueberry Crumb Bars

White Chocolate Blondies

Chocolate Butterscotch Crumb Bars

Chocolate Cinnamon Oatmeal Bars