Peanut Butter Blondies

I got this recipe from a friend on a food board I am involved with. A few of us made it in a bake-along. My kids loved these and they flew out of here. If you need something quick and easy...this may be just the thing for you. I did add a little over 1/2 cup of bittersweet chocolate chips to mine, not the extra full cup the recipe calls for, and they balanced the bar out well and cut the sweetness. I also used Reese's Peanut Butter Chips. Another trick I use for brownies and blondies is to score the bars while they are still hot from the oven, it makes them easy to cut cleanly when cool. I actually prefer to line the pan with a baking parchment sling, but the directions for the foil one is given and I did use that the first time I made these as in the picture.


Peanut Butter Blondies
"The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book"


1 ½ cups All-Purpose flour (7 ½ ounces)
1 teaspoon Baking powder
½ teaspoon Salt
8 Tablespoons Unsalted butter, melted and cooled (1 stick)
1 ½ cups Packed light brown sugar (10 ½ ounces)
2 large Eggs
4 teaspoons Vanilla extract
½ cup Crunchy peanut butter, room temperature
½ cup Peanut butter chips (3 ounces)
¼ cup Roasted, salted peanuts, chopped (1 ¼ ounces)

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13 by 9-inch baking pan with a foil sling and grease the foil.*

2. In a large bowl, whisk the butter and brown sugar together. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla until combined. Whisk in the peanut butter until combined. Stir in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Stir in the peanut butter chips and peanuts.


3. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake the blondies until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, 30 to 35 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking. (If the toothpick comes away clean, the blondies are overbaked)



4. Let the blondies cool completely in the pan, set on a wire rack, about 2 hours. Remove the blondies from the pan using the foil, cut into squares, and serve.



Variation
Chocolate-peanut butter blondies
Although we prefer bittersweet chips here, semisweet chocolate chips can be substituted.
Add 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips, with the peanut butter chips in step 2.



*Making a foil sling:
With their gooey fillings and high sugar content, brownies and bar cookies and often snack cakes can be nearly impossible to remove from their baking pans – no matter how well the pan is greased. After baking countless batches, we finally found a method that works every time. Lining the pan with an aluminum foil or parchment paper “sling” before baking prevents any casualties. Once cooled, the bar cookies may be lifted easily from the pan, transferred to a cutting board, and cut into tidy squares.

1. For a square pan, cut two long sheets of aluminum foil so they they are as wide as the baking pan (if the pan is rectangular, the two sheets will be different sizes). Lay the sheets of foil in the pan, perpendicular to one another, with the extra foil hanging over the edges of the pan. (The foil forms a cross. The center of the cross covers the bottom of the pan, and the edges of the cross are the overhang)

2. Push the foil into the corners and up the sides of the pan. Try to iron out any wrinkles in the foil, smoothing it flush to the pan. Grease the sides and bottom before adding the batter.

3. After the brownies, bars, or cakes have baked and cooled, use the foil sling to lift and transfer them to a cutting board before cutting into squares. The foil should easily peel away.