Smoked Maple Blondies
Golden Smoked Maple Blondies are delightful treats for a holiday cookie exchange.
It’s baking season! So many delicious treats to enjoy. Here’s an invitation to pause your cookie baking for this fantastic treat. We love brownies, chocolatey-rich and delicious, and their counterpart, blondies, more cookie-like but a fusion of brownie and cookie. One of my new favorite blondies is this recipe for Smoked Maple Blondies. Made with browned butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup Smoked Maple Blondies are already off to a good start. Let’s continue on this adventure!
Brown butter is absolute gold when it comes to both cooking and baking. Browned butter adds a luxurious nuttiness to these blondies, and it’s so simple to do that you may find yourself browning butter for your next batch of cookies, too! Layers of flavor occur in these three ingredients, from the molasses-infused sugar that is brown sugar to the richness of maple syrup, and of course, the browned butter.
Not to be forgotten, the “smoke.” The next layer of flavor comes in the form of smoked paprika. Rich and earthy smoked paprika, sugar, more butter (wink), and pecans are tossed together and toasted. These candied pecans will be folded into the batter, adding smoky sweetness and crunch.
The kitchen will smell downright irresistible a these Smoked Maple Blondies bake in the oven. And then comes the time for patience, as it is necessary to let the blondies cool slightly before slicing into squares and serving. Golden Smoked Maple Blondies are delightful treats for a holiday cookie exchange or maybe even left on a plate for Santa to enjoy!
Smoked Maple Blondies
Yield(s): Serves 9
10m prep time
40m cook time
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, browned
- 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
For candied nuts:
- 1 cup pecans, crushed
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F and prepare an 8x8 parchment lined pan.
- For candied nuts, add crushed pecans, sugar, butter, paprika, and salt to a non-stick sauté pan over medium heat. Cook pecans until sugar starts to caramelize and remove to a sil-pat to cool.
- In a large bowl, mix together brown butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, an egg, and vanilla extract.
- Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and coarse salt until combined.
- Fold the dry mixture into the wet batter, then add in candied nuts.
- Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until golden. Let rest for 10 minutes. Enjoy!
Recipe adapted from Cookpad