Browned butter. It’s nutty, flavorful, and adds a completely different dimension to baked goods.
Have you ever cooked or baked with it before? If not, you should go change that right now. Get out a stick of butter and start melting it! Or maybe wait until after you are done reading this. Sometimes multi-tasking is hard and you really don’t want to burn it.
Browned butter is exactly what it sounds like: butter than has been browned. Go figure.
You essentially melt butter in a saucepan and whisk it until the milk solids are cooked and toasted. This is what makes the butter brown and gives off that nice, nutty aroma. It’s amazing. But for how amazing browned butter is, blackened butter is not. So watch it carefully and do not burn it, hence my previous warning about multi-tasking.
I am going to add this browned butter into blondies.
Now let’s think about this: dishwater blonde is a hair color that is blondish-brownish. So if I use browned butter in blondies should I call them “dishwater blondies”?
That’s a hypothetical question. I am not going to call them that.
Plus, along with the browned butter we are also going to add in some ginger and peaches. And what would you call that? These ingredients just throw an entirely different dimension into this hair color analogy, so I’m just going to stop. After all, this isn’t a salon. It’s a kitchen.
Oh, and pecans. I can’t forget about the toasted pecans!
So we’re just going to stick with this: browned butter ginger peach blondies.
The name is a bit long, but the product is a lot delicious.
- 1 cup pecans
- 15 tbsp unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks), melted and cooled
- 1 ¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 ½ cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 firm peaches, one diced and one sliced
- Pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Take two pieces of foil and place them perpendicularly in a 13x9” baking pan. Leave some overhang so that the blondies can easily be lifted out of the pan. Grease foil with butter or oil.
- To toast the nuts: spread pecans on a baking sheet and bake for about 10-15 minutes until golden brown. Stir them around occasionally (every 5 minutes or so) to ensure they are not burning. Once toasted, chop roughly and set aside.
- To brown the butter: melt butter in a medium saucepan. Whisk the melted butter until brown specks appear at the bottom, it will froth and foam a bit. Watch closely and be careful not to burn. It should be a light brown color and have a nutty aroma. Place browned butter (should yield about ¾ cup) into a heatproof bowl and let cool slightly.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and ginger. Toss in the diced peaches. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the browned butter and brown sugar until combined. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Fold in the dry ingredients until just combined; do not overmix. Fold in the nuts (feel free to save some to sprinkle on top).
- Spread batter into the prepared pan, place the sliced peaches on top, sprinkle with the remaining pecans and a few dashes of ginger. Bake for 30-35 minutes.
- Cool completely before removing bars from the pan.
I know you are probably prepping for a huge 4th of July picnic right now. I apologize for not bringing you something in the red, white, and blue color scheme. But at the same time, I don’t apologize at all. These are so, so good.
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OMG these look amazing!! I don’t often eat real flour baked goods, but I may have yo make an exception for this recipe. Looks like a good “cheat day” treat. YUM!
I won’t lie to you, these are quite delicious. Definitely worth the cheat day! Plus, you shouldn’t have any problem giving away the leftovers 🙂