Almond Blondies
Gluten free and delicious.
This post is sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill. They make a huge range of quality products including the gluten-free almond meal I used for these blondies. Check them out on Facebook and follow them on Twitter for lots of fun recipe ideas.
My favorite kinds of gluten-free items are the ones that aren’t forced to be gluten-free. I think it’s pretty hard to make gluten-free bread at home that is anywhere as delicious as real bread. Of course, if you have a gluten intolerance you have very little say in the matter.
But there are a bunch of baking recipes where gluten is sort of a by-product of using flour in the recipe when in reality the gluten isn’t important to the recipe. Any kind of baked dessert bar is a great example. In fact, I substituted 100% of the flour in a normal blondie recipe with almond meal for this recipe and they were actually better than the original.
Almond Blondies
Yield: 9 blondies (8x8 baking dish)
Prep Time:
Total Time:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups almond meal
1 teaspoon corn starch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup macadamia nuts
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium bowl (almond meal, corn starch, baking powder, and salt).
2) In a slightly larger bowl, beat together eggs, melted and cooled butter, and sugar until it's an even consistency.
3) Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Once combined, fold in nuts and chocolate.
4) Lightly butter an 8x8 baking dish and transfer batter to dish.
5) Bake blondies for 35-40 minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Baking them at a lower temperature prevents the almond meal from burning.
6) When done, let cool for 10 minutes before slicing and serving. The blondies should continue to setup as they cool. If they are really wet still, store them in the fridge for an hour and they should firm up nicely.
Blondie Batter
Let’s face it: Flour isn’t exactly known for having a good flavor. But almond flour is a different beast entirely. It’s really light and almost fluffy and has a subtle almond flavor that can take a standard blondie recipe to another level.
Very light texture.
To start the batter, just whisk together all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Nothing too tricky here.
The other dry stuff is pretty basic.
Then stir together the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. For the butter, be sure to melt it and let it cool before mixing it in or you might accidentally cook your eggs!
Essentials for any good bar.
Then stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and your batter is done. I said it takes 15 minutes to make this batter but that’s if you are the slowest stirrer in the world.
It’s probably closer to five minutes.
A thick and rich batter.
Any time you make a blondie or brownie, you would be remiss (in my opinion) to not include some fun add ins.
I went with white chocolate and macadamia nuts because those keep the blondie theme going and also taste great with almonds.
Hard to go wrong here.
Baking the Blondies
When you’re ready to bake, there’s only one thing to note. Before transferring the blondie batter to an 8×8 baking dish, be sure to lightly butter the dish which will help with blondie removal later.
A longer bake time is good here.
Almond meal has a tendency to burn easier than flour. To make sure that I didn’t burn these blondies, I actually baked them at a much lower 300 degrees and baked them for longer than I normally would. Mine needed about 40 minutes to firm up, but I would start checking around 35 minutes.
Then the blondies are browned around the edges and mostly set in the center, they are done. As they cool, they will set up even more.
Done deal!
I actually thought these blondies were best after chilling in the fridge for a few hours because they setup really well and were nice and dense.
If you happen to be on the gluten-free train or if you just like really good blondies, you have to give these a shot. Blondies are one of those things that can actually be improved by ditching the flour so you might as well do it!
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Thanks Nick for a gluten free baked good recipe. I will definitely make these! Going gluten free has been so difficult for me, but has really helped stomach issues!
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Nick replied: — February 26th, 2013 @ 12:26 pm
Nice Nikki. Yea… my mom is in the same boat. These are a treat for sure.
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Love blondies! Am trying this out for sure!
R
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cannot wait to try these — I wish Bob’s Red Mill would just give you 80 pounds of almond flour!
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Nick replied: — February 26th, 2013 @ 12:26 pm
I know right? It’s a great product. I love using it whenever I can.
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HELLS yes! I like this Macheesmo dabbling of GF baked goods! I’ll have to try these!
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I just made GF blondies–the exact same recipe.
weird.
is this recipe from bob’s?
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Nick replied: — February 26th, 2013 @ 3:38 pm
Nah, it’s an adaptation of an old blondie recipe I have on Macheesmo. Your recipe looks pretty different to me actually! Delicious, but Im not sure I would say they are the exact same. :)
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I know I made LARGE changes to this recipe but I am new to wheat free baking so this was an awesome guideline. I wanted to share with everyone what I did. still need to perfect it.
Replaced butter with coconut oil. A little oily so I will decrease next time?
Replaced one of the eggs with egg whites
1/2 c brown sugar and 1/2 tsp stevia. Could likely decrease sugar further
Added some dark chocolate chunks.
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Nick replied: — March 5th, 2013 @ 8:21 am
Sounds like okay substitutions Melissa. I would definitely decrease the amount of oil if you are subbing for the butter. I would probably use 2/3 of the original amount. Good luck!
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Melissa replied: — March 5th, 2013 @ 8:38 am
Thanks. I will try that!
Substituting coconut oil is also a newer venture and I had already changed so much. Had no idea what was going to happen as this was my first almond flour recipe. I am so amazed, though, the texture was just awesome; No desire for the missing wheat texture at all!
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Melissa replied: — March 8th, 2013 @ 4:48 pm
I also didn’t have the mac nuts or the white chocolate in the cupboard. Hence the dark chocolate.
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I made these yesterday and they were delicious! They are definately not diet friendly because of the butter and sugar, but I didn’t feel quite as guilty since they don’t have white flour. I think I’ll try Melissa’s substitions next time. Thanks for the recipe!
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Shout out to Bob’s Red Mill! I’ve been paleo for a while, so occasionally use BRM’s almond or coconut flour to make treats for myself. They really are crazy good, and take something like a chocolate chip cookie to a new level. Obvs not as chewy as a regular cookie, but different, and probably “better” in most senses.
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