Blondies

A few days ago, my friend Shannon expressed a longing via her Facebook status for that estranged cousin of the brownie: the blondie. In an answering comment on her page, I promised to unearth my blondie recipe just for her.

That night, I rifled through my cookbook shelf and found it: a small, stapled booklet with a cover derived from garish foil wallpaper samples. Its handlettered cover reads, “Our Favorite Recipes from Second Grade.” This little booklet, which has survived since the early 80’s, contains 12 of the best recipes you can fit into a 9″ x 13″ pan, all typed on my second grade teacher’s typewriter, and copied in the purple ink of an old school ditto machine. On page two is a recipe for blondies.

My second grade teacher was a gem. Her name was Dorothy Modrack, and my year in her classroom stands out brightly in my memory. She was the kind of resourceful soul who found a way to utilize everything from half-pint school cafeteria milk cartons to 4-ounce mushroom cans (my mom has a pincushion to prove it). Even better than her resourcefulness and creativity, though, was her sense of fun. She wanted us to love school. And oh, we did. Every day was an adventure and a celebration. We all felt deeply sorry for those kids in the other second grade classroom down the hall, the ones who didn’t have our teacher.

Tuesdays were Baking Days. The back corner of the room was partitioned off into a little kitchenette of sorts, containing a low countertop with a few cupboards and drawers underneath. We were assigned baking partners, and each week, one set of partners got a turn. The recipes were simple, requiring only the use of a bowl, measuring cups and spoons, a spatula for mixing, and a 9″ x 13″ pan. We all looked forward to our turn at Baking Day.

Mrs. Modrack was a smart cookie; we didn’t even know we were supposed to be learning anything. But looking back as an adult, I can see how cooking in the classroom was a great skill-builder. We had to read and carry out instructions, measure ingredients, and work collaboratively. We also had to share the fruits of our labors with the rest of the class – not always easy for a seven-year-old.

So we read directions, measured ingredients, took turns mixing them by hand, and carefully walked our pans full of batter down to the school kitchen to be baked. And then, at the end of the school year, we made lovely wallpaper-covered cookbooks to take home to our mommies.

I had forgotten about the cookbook until a few years ago, when I was helping my mom sort through a few boxes in her basement. As I leafed through its pages, memories of that delightful second grade year came flooding back. I asked to take the cookbook home with me, and my mom graciously agreed. Since then, it’s spent most of its time wedged between two cookbooks on my baker’s rack shelf, forgotten, until someone mentions blondies.

“I’m going to make blondies,” I announced to Eli that same night, waving the wallpaper-covered booklet in front of him.

“What’s a blondie?” he asked. I explained that, basically, it is a brownie minus the chocolate.

“But I like chocolate,” he replied.

Um, don’t we all? I assured him that, chocolate aside, he would like the blondies, too.

Apparently, there are people in the world who have lived a good many years without blondies. If you’re one of them, allow me to introduce you. The blondie is a bar cookie with a brownie texture, with a flavor that’s something like a chocolate chip cookie without the chips, but more moist and chewy, and made solely with brown sugar instead of a mix of brown and white. In the variation below, I’ve substituted sweet cream butter for the shortening listed in the original recipe (shortening, although well-thought of in the 80’s, before we knew about trans fats, is outlawed in my kitchen). I think the butter makes for a better blondie, anyway.

All your blondie needs is a glass of milk to wash it down, but if you like, you can dress it up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of caramel sauce. And they’ll be all the better if you serve them when they’re still warm from the oven.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 9″ x 13″ baking pan. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together:

2/3 cup sweet cream butter

2 cups firmly packed brown sugar

Beat in:

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 eggs

In a medium bowl, whisk together:

2 cups unbleached flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Add the dry mixture to the wet a cupful at a time, beating well after each addition. Batter will be very thick. Spread evenly into the pan, and bake 30-35 minutes, until blondies are a deep golden brown and have a crusty edge and cracked top. Remove to a cooling rack; they will collapse a bit just like brownies do. Cut into squares. Makes 18-24 blondies.