Blondies — Tips & Techniques

This is a reference page of tips — no ingredient list or complete method is given.

TIPS & TECHNIQUES

• Always line your baking pan. Eating blondies is fun; cleaning up after them isn't. The solution? Line your pan with aluminum foil or parchment paper. This not only makes for easy cleanup, but it also keeps the blondies from sticking to the pan. Talk about a win-win.
• Temperature matters. Yes, you're going to need to melt your butter. But don't combine screaming hot, just-melted butter to your eggs and sugar—we do not want scrambled eggs here. Also, be sure to bring your eggs to room temperature before combining. Does it take a little planning to remove those eggs from the fridge an hour in advance? Sure, but they'll combine much better than when cold, yielding a smoother, creamier batter.
• If you forget to take your ingredients out of the fridge before beginning, or you have a spur-of-the-moment sweet tooth craving that needs satisfying ASAP, stick your ingredients in warm (not hot!) water for about 15 minutes.
• Don't overmix your batter. You've no doubt been told at one time or another not to do this, but do you know why? Sure, all the ingredients need to be well incorporated, which includes taking a spatula and scraping the stuff that sticks to the side of the mixing bowl. But get too crazy with it and you risk developing too much gluten in the flour, which will change the structure of the blondie (or any baked good for that matter). When you overmix, you wind up with stiff and dense (in a bad way) blondies.