‘Trust Me’ Peanut Butter Blondies

I’ve been making these light but fudgy peanut beauties for years, long before I started baking on social media. So I had a bit of shock this week filming the recipe when I realised they look terrible on camera; spongy and cake-like, exactly what is not required of any blondie or brownie. Here the peanut butter behaves similarly to a flour when it’s baked giving the interior a cakey look, but your first bite should convince you to never judge a blondie by appearances. So if you want a peanut blondie with a crisp, crackly top, a light, chewy middle and the perfect hint of fudginess, trust me, you’ll love these.

INGREDIENTS

3 large eggs

300g white granulated sugar (you can use caster)

Pinch of salt

210g peanut butter - your choice of crunchy / smooth / sugar free

75g salted butter

75g plain flour

(GLUTEN FREE: 125g self raising gluten free mix and no baking powder)

1/4 tsp baking powder

75g of your choice of chocolate cut into chunks

HOW TO:

• Gently melt the butter and peanut butter together and mix until smooth.

• Add the eggs, sugar and salt to a large mixing bowl and beat for 2 minutes until thick and moussy. You can use a hand mixer but it may take a little longer.

• Pour the peanut / butter mix into the moussy egg.

• Add a third of the flour and start to fold the flour down from the top and the peanut / butter mix up from the bottom, add the flour in two more goes and stop folding when the mixture is evenly combined.

• Pour into a lined 27x22cm tin and scatter over the chocolate chunks.

• Bake in the middle of the oven at 175ºc fan for 28 minutes.

• Leave to cool completely then cut and eat.

• These store well in an air tight tub and get fudgier the longer you can leave them. But that bit is really hard.

Tat x