White Chocolate Blondies with Maple Butter Sauce - Week #5 of 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies

Do you ever find something that just makes you so happy you could just skip all over town with happiness?!?  Yup....I've have experienced that kind of happiness with this lovely oh-so-d'lish recipe. Once again, I have to applaud a huge hand of appreciation to the Tasty Kitchen as this is where I came across this treasure of a recipe which was found from the TK member, thecountrycook.   As my good friend Kylah pointed out...."This dessert is just like Applebee's!" And my goodness is she ever right! 

The bars are one of the fastest bars to whip together and pop in the oven.....but the sauce takes a little bit more patience.  You have to cook down all the ingredients for a good 20-30 minutes - and that time table is after you find the right heat level on your stove so that the sauce doesn't boil - you want the sauce to cook at a gentle simmer - needless to say boil over and get all over your stove like it did for me.  It wasn't a pretty sight.  But I gathered all my strength (and patience) and continued on with the "cooking down" of the sauce.  This time really making sure the heat of the burner didn't allow any further "boiling over".   And like magic after time the sauce oozes with a glorious maple flavor and slightly thickens.  Perfect to pour over your vanilla ice cream topped blondie. 

Thus I offer you my 5th addition to the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies.

White Chocolate Walnut Blondies with Maple Butter Sauce

(recipe found on Tasty Kitchen from The Country Cook)

Blondie Ingredients:

3 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

10 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

2 cups brown sugar

3 whole eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup white chocolate chips

Sauce Ingredients:

2 Tbsp's unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

6 Tbsp's (REAL) maple syrup

3 Tbsp's light corn syrup

Blondie Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9x13 baking pan and set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder.  Set flour mixture aside.

2. In a large mixing bowl, mix melted butter and brown sugar together until well-blended.  Add in beaten eggs and vanilla extract.  Stir well all together.

3. Slowly add in flour mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture.  Stir thoroughly but make sure you do not over mix the batter....it will make your blondies tough.  Fold in nuts and chocolate chips.  Beware...your batter will be pretty thick.

4. Scoop batter into prepared pan.  Pop into oven and bake for 25-30 or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Cool and cut into squares to serve with the sinfully delicious Maple Butter Sauce and a scoop of good vanilla ice cream.  Oh Baby! - HEAVENLY!!

Maple Butter Sauce Directions:

1. Melt butter in a medium sauce pan over medium heat - be careful not to burn butter.

2. Add in heavy cream, maple syrup and corn syrup.  Lower heat slightly and allow mixture to come to a gentle simmer.  Be sure to stay close to the stove to monitor heat and make sure that the mixture does not come to a boil and thus boil over sauce pan (this will be a HUGE mess....as my experience tells me).

3. Once mixture comes to a gentle simmer cook for 20-30 minutes - stirring occasionally - until sauce reduces by 1/3 and becomes slightly thickened (As the sauce cools it will thicken further).  This is the only hard part of this recipe....being patient as the sauce reduces and slightly thickens....remember to just monitor the heat of the stove so that it does not boil-over.

Serve sauce over blondies with a scoop of good vanilla ice cream of your choice.....

Happy White Chocolate Blondies with Maple Butter Sauce Baking!

Week 5 Twelve Weeks of Christmas: