After a month of abstaining from serious dessert (inordinate amounts of dark chocolate, providing heaps of antioxidants, don’t count), a sugar craving and a magazine blurb had me unearthing baking pans and once again scribbling down butter, chocolate and brown sugar on my grocery list. The blurb described a treat offered at San Francisco’s Black Jet Baking Co — brown butter blondies made with Maldon sea salt — which I needed to have in my mouth immediately. Sorry, but I did. While no recipe accompanied the blurb, the ever-so-giving interweb provided more than a handful of brown butter blondie recipes for me to compare and contrast, many of which had similar butter-to-flour-to-sugar ratios. After creating a crude comparison table, I ultimately just altered the blondie recipe I always make, substituting brown butter for the butter and a teaspoon of Maldon sea salt for the salt. And, perhaps because the sea salt enhances the flavors of all of the elements including the brown sugar, after making a few batches, I reduced the amount of brown sugar by a quarter cup. To me, these are heaven, a perfect balance of sweet and salty, impossible not to nibble on all day long. The brown butter, which I had yet to experiment with in baking, provides all of the nuttiness and deliciousness promised by its many fans. These are particularly good with a glass of milk, but I can’t pretend I haven’t enjoyed them aside morning coffee and afternoon tea as well.
5 from 1 review Notes: As mentioned above, the original recipe, which is delicious, calls for melted butter not browned, much less salt, and 1/4 cup more brown sugar. I double the recipe (reflected below) and bake it in a 9×9-inch pan, and although I have not tried it, a few of you have had success using an 8×8-inch pan with the double recipe, too.
