Cherry Almond Blondies

I was in a brownie mood last night, but large amounts of chocolate has proved to make the baby a tad on the cranky side. After digging through my cooking magazines, I happened across one with a recipe for "blondies", basically a brownie without cocoa. So I'd get that chewy texture without the fussy baby up all night! Score!




2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup chopped almonds (I used slivered because that's all I had)
1 cup dried cherries, coarsely chopped

Drizzle:
2 oz baking chocolate
1 tsp shortening
OR 2 squares of chocolate almond bark which is what I used


Heat oven to 350. Combine brown sugar and butter in a large bowl, beat at medium speed until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla, continue beating until well mixed. Reduce speed to low, add flour and baking powder; beat until well mixed. Stir in almonds and cherries.

Press or spread mixture into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake for 28-35 minutes or until top is golden brown and center is set. Cool completely.

Combine chocolate and shortening in small saucepan, and melt together over low heat, stirring occasionally. Or microwave almond bark to melt. Drizzle chocolate over the brownies and cut into bars.


I'm thinking that the darker chocolate the recipe called for would have set the cherries off nicely, but the darker the chocolate the fussier my baby so I used the milkiest stuff I had. I also used up my dark brown sugar, so 1 1/2 cups of the sugar was dark and the other 1/2 cup was light. With the cherries it made it taste healthy, to quote my husband. It really did turn out yummy, and I had a piece of it for breakfast, reasoning that the cherries and nuts had fiber - so it is healthy. :-)