Cookie Quest - Blondies!

I'm interested in making cookies that ship well lately, as I've got a customer on the west coast who keeps asking for some Becky-made cookies. My feeling, and maybe this is wrong, is that bar cookies are better shippers than regular cookies since the bar seems to be a little sturdier and it's easier to fit rectangular shaped bar cookies into rectangular shaped boxes. So far I've shipped her BB bars and brownies, which are the only bar cookies I make with any regularity. I like lots of bar cookies, like lemon bars and those crumble-covered fruit bars, but never make them because I won't get any help eating them at home. I've made them and taken them into work before, but transporting baked goods on the bus can be a bit tricky. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, sturdy cookies to ship. I'm open to ideas - what cookies do you make that ship well?

Straight out of 1988 Naples, FL

Sometimes I get tired of making the same thing over and over again (though, curiously, I never get tired of eating them), so I decided to branch out of my bar cookie rut and try something new. Blondies sounded about right - the perfect combination of something familiar and something new. I could probably make chocolate chip cookies with my eyes closed at this point, but haven't made blondies in years. The recipe I have is a clipping from a June 1988 edition of the Naples Daily News that I got from my mom, who has apparently made this recipe before. I was encouraged to make it after I saw that she had written "good" next to the recipe - I guess they don't deserve a "very good" but they did get the underline, which means they're better than just "good", right? It's part of a whole article in the Daily News about brownies that includes recipes for Chocolate Syrup Brownies, White Chocolate Brownies (why?), Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Brownies (sounds good), Cream Cheese Brownies, Rocky Road Brownies, Chocolate Apricot Brownies, Caramel Brownies, and Buttery Fudge Brownies.

Dad always says enough butter and brown sugar make anything good, so how can I go wrong?

The recipe begins with a quick note, "We hear that there are people out there who don't like chocolate...If you prefer, add chunks of chocolate to the batter." Oh, I definitely prefer. The recipe calls for a cup of pecans, but I swapped those out for a cup of chocolate chips instead. The rest of the recipe reads pretty close to a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, except for two things: it uses all brown sugar instead of a mix of brown and white, and it calls for a couple of teaspoons of baking powder instead of the scant amount of baking soda in my chocolate chip cookie recipe. And the method for mixing is pretty close, too. Start with melted butter, and then work your way through adding the rest of the ingredients and spread the whole thing into a 13x9 pan. Which means that I just found a way to make chocolate chip cookies (already pretty easy to make) even easier. Why do I not make these more often, again?

How long do they have to cool before I can cut them?

And, indeed, I feel silly that this recipe has not made it into my standard repertoire sooner. They have a pleasant chewy texture and a nice butterscotchy flavor studded with chocolate, and a crumbly top similar to a brownie. They're definitely on the sweet side, but first of all, they're cookies so that's okay, and second of all, that's easy to change. Overall, a success!

Yum!

Blond Brownies
Naples Daily News, June 22, 1988

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
2 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans or chocolate chips (or both, if you're feeling a little crazy)

Grease a 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt.

Melt butter, remove from heat. Stir in sugar, add eggs and vanilla; stir til combined. Stir dry ingredients and pecans/chocolate chips into sugar mixture. Spread in pan. Bake 20-25 minutes. (Be careful not to overbake or they will be dry.) Cut into bars while warm.


Makes 48 (if you cut them really small).