Saturday, October 17, 2009

People's Choice: Pumpkin White Chocolate Blondies

As a result of the pumpkin poll, I made the pumpkin white chocolate blondies that were recommended by Cate of Cate's World Kitchen. Click here for the recipe. They are delicious, moist and cakey bars that have all of the Fall flavors and spices of pumpkin pie- but in a bar.

And, my first attempt didn't exactly go as I expected because I accidentally bought milk chocolate chips and I misread "can" instead of "cup." This recipe takes a CUP of pumpkin puree not a can! If you put in a whole can, you will get a pan of pumpkin blondies where the toothpick comes out clean but the blondies are super wet and under done. The original recipe that Cate modified (from Martha) uses chocolate chips. While I am not a huge white chocolate fan, I think it complements the spices in the bar a bit better than the milk chocolate. So "if at first you don't succeed, try again" is the motto in our kitchen and I remade these bars with the white chocolate and the correct amount of pumpkin and they were great.

Here's a few notes about the recipe before you try it:

1. Here's the mountain of dry ingredients. If you don't have pumpkin pie spice, you can make your own blend. I actually prefer this. For 1 Tbsp of pumpkin pie spice use:

1 and 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp of ground ginger
1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg ( I freshly grated this from whole nutmeg)
1/2 tsp of ground cloves
1/2 tsp of ground allspice

2. As Cate mentioned, when you add the cup of pumpkin, it doesn't completely mix in smoothly- it looks curdled. Make sure to use a spatula to scrape your bowl as the butter can stick to the sides.

3. Once all of your ingredients are added, spread and bake. After my first attempt, I wanted to make sure these were done! I baked for about 36 minutes and it was still on the moist side, the recipe says 30-40 min. Next time I might even bake them closer to 40 minutes.

These are a wonderful Fall treat and I hope you enjoy them.