As you can see, we love chocolate chip cookies of all variations around here. These super chocolate chip blondies I made several weeks ago got the wheels in my brain turning. I loved the recipe because the middles were practically filled with chocolate and were so soft and delicious.
My boyfriend and I decided to invent a blondie that captured the concept of a Take 5 Candy bar, which my boyfriend can’t get enough of. The mixture of chocolate, peanut butter, peanuts, caramel and pretzels all together is awesome. We bought truffles from Trader Joe’s a few weeks ago that were salted dark chocolate filled with peanut butter and caramel. Amazing. To start with, we used the base recipe for the blondies since we love those so much. We added Reese’s Peanut Butter chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips into the dough and then on top we added mini chocolate covered pretzels and cut-up pieces of Snickers caramel (this is one of their new products that is a chocolate candy bar filled with caramel.)
The result…delicious! I would even go as far as to take chopped-up Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to add-on top next time. The caramels sort of sink in and disappear while baking so feel free to load on more toppings than I did. I am calling them Candy Blondies because Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip, Snickers Simply Caramel, and Chocolate Covered Pretzel Blondies is just far too long. Don’t you agree?
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
- 1 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups AP flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. kosher salt
- 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
- 1 cup peanut butter chips
- 2-3 bars of Snicker’s Simply Caramel Bars, chopped
- 1 cup of mini chocolate covered pretzels (or regular sized roughly chopped)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Using the paper from the sticks of butter, grease a 8½x12x2 inch baking pan and then dust with flour.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer cream butter and sugars on high speed until light and fluffy.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl, turn mixer to low and then add in vanilla extract. Next add in egg one at a time mix until all combined.
- In a medium sized bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, and kosher salt.
- Gradually add in dry ingredients with the mixer on low speed until all combined.
- Fold in the chocolate chips and peanut butter chips.
- Spread the dough onto baking pan until smooth and then press the Snickers Simple Caramel Pieces and Chocolate Covered Pretzels into the top of the dough,
- Bake for 30 minutes. Stick a toothpick into the middle of blondies and if there is no batter on the toothpick they are done.
- Let cool and then slice into squares.
Source- Adapted from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Foolproof
