This week we made blondies (p. 218), a cookie bar that I’d never made and rarely eat. For the 5 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, we used Icelandic chocolate, sold as part of the ‘sustainable Iceland’ project (I’m guessing that means ‘helping Iceland have an economy so it can sustain its existence as a nation’ and not necessarily a particularly environmental goal). I’m glad I picked it, because it sure was tasty.

Blondies, I’ve discovered, are made by spreading chocolate chip cookie dough in a jelly roll pan, baking, and then cutting into bars. The recipe admonishes, ‘Do not overbake!’ Well, we slightly overbaked them (if my partner keeps picking bar cookies, a possibility that never crossed my mind before embarking on this project, I’m thinking we would do well to invest in a standard sized jelly roll pan to replace our slightly too-large one). And then let them cool overnight, erroneously putting them in the category of brownies and lemon bars, which the book recommends leaving to cool overnight. It being the dead of winter, and our house being only slightly more humid than the desert, they were, shall we say, not as chewy as one might like this morning. Still yummy! Just not really that chewy at all.

Besides these user errors, the recipe was pretty standard. Butter, eggs, two kinds of sugar, vanilla, nuts, chocolate. Mix together, spread in a pan, bake. As with the sugar cookies, there was nothing about this recipe that would make me recommend ditching your favorite blondie recipe (if you’re a person who has a favorite blondie recipe distinct from your favorite chocolate chip recipe) and replacing it with this one.

overall ratings:
ease of preparation: 2
match to expectations: 2
“the cookie itself”: 2.5