Blondies have more fun
Bar cookies put a sweet spin on back-to-school lunches
As the father of four sons — two grown and graduated from university, two more still in school — I know that right around now children may be deep in the doldrums. Depending on where in the country you live, summer vacation is drawing to a close or school has already started.
Either way, desperate measures are necessary to help those children who are still at home feel active, interested and happy, or to help cheer up those who have already returned to the classroom. Baking sweet treats has always done the trick for me, going back all the way to those days when I was an unhappy schoolboy in Austria dreading the end of my own summer break.
That is why I’d like to share a recipe for a delicious baked confection everyone will enjoy: blondies with walnuts and chocolate chips. I first encountered these popular American bar cookies — along
with brownies, their even better-known chocolate-flavored cousins — after I came to America back in 1973, and I fell in love with them immediately. Like rich, dense, slightly chewy little pieces of cake you can pick up and eat from your hand, they have always seemed to me even more fun, indulgent and satisfying than cookies — and I love cookies!
Not only that, but blondies are easy to make. In fact, they’re even easier than most brownie recipes, since there’s no need to melt chocolate first. Mixed with a stand mixer or hand-held electric mixer, the batter comes together in just minutes. After 45 minutes or so of baking, and maybe another halfhour to an hour of cooling before you cut them into squares, you have a treat that will bring joy to children and parents alike.
Under parental supervision, kids can join in the fun of preparing the blondies. If you like, let them come up with different variations from the walnuts
and chocolate chips in the following recipe. I’ve seen blondies that contain other kinds of nuts, white chocolate or butterscotch chips, chopped pieces of toffee or other candy, raisins or chopped dried fruit of other kinds, miniature marshmallows, and even pieces of salted pretzel.
The fun doesn’t have to end there either. One of my favorite ways to enjoy blondies is to make them the base for sundaes. Place a square in a shallow serving bowl, and top it with a scoop of whatever ice cream you like. Then a drizzle of your favorite sweet sauce, a dollop of whipped cream and some sprinkles top it off. Set up a blondie sundae bar, and the children may — at least for a moment — be so distracted they’ll forget that summer’s almost over or school’s already back in session.