The night before an early morning flight leaves me either wanting a home-cooked meal because we won’t be home for a few days OR leaves me wanting nothing to do with the kitchen since I like to clean the house and leave things perfect for when we arrive home.
My favorite salad from The Cheesecake Factory in take-out fashion.
The onion strings, otherwise known as the best part, are happily mixed in but were almost not there because, as always, they forgot to include them which is why I inspect the bag each and every time before leaving the restaurant.
Somehow I finished packing (and even found a few new shirts yesterday!) so I am just sitting here real quick chatting with you and trying to find some ripe bananas in my pile to throw together with the rest of the ever-important travel foods.
Learned my lesson the last time in the Orlando airport <—they DO NOT SELL GUM. ANYWHERE.
I feel like I was just in Florida but wow, that was a little over three months ago already.
Time is flying lately, isn’t it?
Confession:
At the age of 19, I was busy flying down to South Florida every three months to have my hair highlighted by a guy named Eddie who worked at Wild Hare in Boca Raton.
Eddie loved that I flew into town just for him and he always called me Blondie.
Now, to be completely honest here, my best friend Heather lived down there so we would get our hair done together and my hair needs were almost an excuse to go see her really often.
Heather and me back in September. I am still blondie but she has gone darker in recent years.
I have always taken my hair real seriously, just as I do my desserts.
You can trust me when I say the recipe I am about to share with you for these Chocolate Bar Chocolate Chip Blondies is worth every bite.
Blondies are basically the same as chocolate chip cookies only you bake them in a square pan and cut them like brownies.
Today’s recipe is super special because you can add a layer of chocolate bars in the center for an extra hidden dose of chocolate with each bite!
So here’s the situation. You can use any type of chocolate bar you wish as your hidden middle layer AND you can make these bars with either coconut oil or butter.
Totally up to you.
I used Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Truffle Chocolate Bars (from my chocolate bar stash) for the purposes of this post.
Once you make your dough, you spread half of it in your pan, top with chocolate bars and then cover up with the rest of the dough.
Since I have made this recipe numerous times, I can tell you that using different kinds of chocolate bars will produce a different (but always tasty!) result in appearance and texture.
The dark chocolate didn’t get all melty inside like when I make this same recipe using Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bars (seen in the below photo).
It’s safe for me to say that no matter which chocolate bar you choose as your filling, these chocolate bar blondies are guaranteed to please.
A couple of other things worth noting:
If you can’t decide between coconut oil or butter for this recipe and want my taste bud’s honest opinion, I think I prefer the texture of the blondies when made with butter.
Both ways are really good –they really are— I personally preferred, if forced to choose, the buttery texture difference.
You do not need to add granulated sugar. Blondies are superb when made with only brown sugar but a 1/4 cup of granulated sugar won’t hurt if you want to use it.
I used Trader Joe’s semi-sweet chocolate chunks but I love baking with mini chocolate chips the best.
Mini chips just give such a nice evenly spread bite of chocolate throughout your blondies or whatever other goodie you are baking.
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar (optional)
- 1 organic egg plus 1 organic egg yolk
- 1/2 cup organic butter or 1/2 cup coconut oil (both at room temperature)
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 2 1/4 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- pinch salt
- 1 1/2 – 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (mini, regular or chunks – can also use dairy-free chips)
- 2 large chocolate bars of choice
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- Blend sugars with butter (or coconut oil).
- Add in eggs and vanilla and mix until combined well.
- In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt and baking soda.
- Add flour mixture to wet mixture until combined. Do not overmix.
- Mix in chocolate chips.
- Spread half of the dough into a lightly greased 8 x 8 pan.
- Place chocolate bars evenly spread on top of the dough.
- Cover with the rest of the dough.
- Bake in oven for about 25 minutes (keep checking it – every oven different) until lightly golden brown on the sides and slightly undercooked in appearance.
- Cool completely before cutting.
My plan to pop in the rest of the week from Disney assuming the WIFI connection is working.
In the meantime, feel free to join me on my trip by following along on instagram and twitter!
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If you had to choose – Blondies or brownies?
Are you nutty about cleaning right before a trip so you come home to a clean hour?
Favorite travel snacks?
The Cookie ChRUNicles 