This easy blondies recipe is the best I’ve made. Since we use melted butter, these blondies are so easy to make and taste amazing! I bet you already have everything you need in your kitchen right now!
My family goes bonkers for these blondies. They are gooey, fudgy in the middle, and taste like rich, buttery caramel.
Use melted butter, which is excellent, or you can add extra flavor by browning your butter first. I’ve shown how to brown butter for blondies below.
Key Ingredients
- Butter: Makes these rich and delicious. For an extra toasty flavor, brown the butter, as in our video. I also explain how to make brown butter here.
- Brown sugar: Makes our blondies taste like sweet caramel. I love using dark brown sugar when making these for even more flavor.
- Egg: Provides structure and makes our blondies fudgy in the middle. Use a room-temperature egg (or close to it) for the best results. It mixes much better into the batter. To quickly warm up your egg, place it in a bowl of lukewarm water for 5 minutes before adding it to the batter.
- Vanilla and salt: Make these taste amazing. If you have almond extract on hand, add a little dash (it’s delicious).
- Flour: I use all-purpose flour, which provides some structure, although I don’t use much of it. Like when making our favorite brownies, we only add a little flour to the batter (more flour results in a cakey, drier texture).
- Chocolate chips: I love chocolate chip blondies, but I’ve provided tips for using other add-ins to our recipe.
How to Make the Best Blondies
Blondies are super simple to make. You’ll start with your butter. I love to brown my butter for brown butter blondies, but plain melted butter will work in this recipe, too.
If you want to brown your butter, swirl it in a saucepan over medium-low heat. It will melt, turn foamy, and finally start turning brown. When your butter looks light brown and smells nutty, it’s ready!
Whisk the butter into the sugar, then add the egg, vanilla, and salt. When that’s blended, stir in the flour and the chocolate chips.
Our blondie batter is thick, so you might need to spread it in your baking pan (I use an 8-inch x 8-inch pan). Then bake them in a 350°F oven until the edges look dry and the middle looks shiny and slightly underbaked. Just like brownies, the blondies will continue to cook and firm up in the middle as they cool.
I love how fudgy and gooey these blondies turn out. With our recipe, the blondies will be around 1/2-inch thick. We love them this way, but if you want to make thicker blondies, add some baking powder to your batter (tips for baking powder are below the recipe).
More Bars and Cookies
- Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies (my favorite)
- Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Bars
- Milky Way Stuffed Cookies
- Easy One-Bowl Brownies
Perfect Blondies Recipe
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
This is my favorite blondie recipe. It makes dense, rich, and fudgy blondies with a paper-thin, crinkly top. If you have it, use dark brown sugar. In our video, we use browned butter (adding an extra 5 minutes to the prep time). You can use plain melted butter in this recipe, but brown butter adds a lovely, toasty caramel flavor.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
8 tablespoons (115g) unsalted butter, 1 stick
1 cup (190g) lightly packed dark or light brown sugar
1 large egg at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract, optional
1/4 rounded teaspoon fine sea salt, decrease a little if sensitive to salt
1 cup (130g) all-purpose flour
1 cup (170g) chocolate chips
1/2 cup optional extras like toasted nuts, dried fruit, or shredded coconut
Directions
1Preheat the oven to 350°F (176°C). Lightly butter and line an 8-inch by 8-inch metal baking pan with aluminum foil or parchment paper.
2Melt the butter or make brown butter (brown butter adds a toasted flavor). To brown butter, add the butter to a heavy-bottomed pan over medium-low heat. As the butter melts, continuously swirl it around the pan. It will melt, get a little foamy, and finally turn golden brown. Remove it from the heat when the butter is light brown and smells nutty.
3Whisk the warm butter into the brown sugar until blended. The mixture will look greasy and gritty. Set aside for a few minutes to cool.
4When the sugar and butter mixture is warm, not hot, add the egg, vanilla, almond extract (optional), and salt. Stir until smooth and ever so slightly lighter in color.
5Add the flour in two additions, gently folding it into the batter after each addition until you no longer see streaks of flour.
6Stir in the chocolate chips and any additional add-ins like nuts or dried fruit.
7Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan. It just covers the bottom of the pan. The batter is very thick, so gently pressing the batter into the corners helps.
8Bake the blondies until the edges look dry and the middle looks shiny and slightly underbaked, 20 to 30 minutes.
9Cool to room temperature before removing from the pan — this step is essential and helps the blondies set. Cut into 16 squares. Don’t be surprised if the blondies have not risen much (they should be about 1/2-inch thick). These are intended to be dense, rich, and a little fudgy.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Storing: Keep your baked blondies in an airtight container at room temperature for 2 to 3 days. Or store them in the fridge for 2 weeks. You can also freeze blondies for up to 3 months! I like wrapping them individually so I can take one or two out of the freezer.
- Baking powder: I prefer these blondies without baking powder (they are fudgy), but if you want taller 1-inch blondies, whisk 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder with the flour before adding to the batter.
- Baking tips: We consistently achieve excellent results when baking these blondies in a 350°F oven for 23 minutes. Ovens vary, and bake time can be affected by the pan you have used. We remove the pan when the top looks shiny and light golden brown. The batter might still look slightly wet if there are cracks, but the middle should not wiggle like jello.
- Baking pan: We recommend using an 8×8-inch metal square pan (ours is from USA Pans), as it provides consistent heat distribution and baking results. Glass and ceramic pans are okay. Due to their different heat transfer properties, they may require a longer baking time.
- Doubling the recipe: Double all the ingredients and bake in a 9-inch by 13-inch baking pan. They will be slightly thicker. The bake time will be similar, but keep an eye on them and use our visual cues in the recipe as a guide.
- The recipe is slightly adapted from Mark Bittman’s cookbook, “How to Cook Everything” (highly recommended), via Smitten Kitchen.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. The calculations include 1 cup of chocolate chips.
these are great – buttery and sweet. My pickleball group absolutely loves them!
I love how simple this recipe is! I used 1/2 cup each of light brown sugar and muscovado sugar. I did opt for the 1/2 tsp of baking power because to me a taller bar feels like a bigger portion 🤭. I used 1/2 cup each of white and milk chocolate chips, and 2/3 cup of macadamia nuts. The only hard part is spreading the dough, as it is very sturdy. Take the time to gently work the dough into all corners with a small spatula. I will make these again and again – they are a great alternative to cookies.
These are so delicious. I took mine out at 20 minutes to keep them very moist, and retain more flavour! 10/10!
my favorite blondie recipe. Quick, easy and so good.
Your recipes are fantastic!!! You helped me perfect my brownies, and now, I’ve been able to do the same with these blondies! I chopped up some Ritter Sport chocolate and topped it before putting it into the oven. I love the depth of flavour that browning the butter adds. What a treat! Thank you for your clear, concise and absolutely delicious recipes.
These were delicious and didn’t last long at all, everyone loved them. Toasting the butter was easy and added so much flavour.
These were so good! I had some left over butterscotch chips so I added those instead of chocolate and they were perfect. The whole family loved them!
Heyy I don’t have any doubt about the taste but if I’m using a tray 11 inch by 11 inch tray how much time would you recommend ? Thank youuuu !
Hi Zoyaaa, I think your pan will be too large for this recipe. You may want to double the recipe. I’d keep an eye on them while they bake and expect them to take 5 to 10 minutes longer.