Nigella's Blondies

 

I found this recipe in my new cooking Bible, Nigella's Kitchen - they are almost brownies. But not brown. And not really made with much chocolate. Although they are meant to be completely blonde, the chocolate chips are sold as "blondes with their roots showing", which endears them to me (having once, admittedly, been a very unnatural blonde, I can empathise.) They are crunchy and chewy in all the right places, made with condensed milk, oats and chocolate chips. Only one thing I'd change - I would chop up "real" chocolate instead of using the recommended chocolate chips.

 

 

Ingredients:

200g rolled oats

100g plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g soft butter
100g light brown sugar
1 tin condensed milk (normally 396g)

1 egg

200g chocolate chips (or chocolate chopped up into bits)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Combine the oats, flour and bicarb and give them a stir about. With an electric beater, or in a mixing bowl if you're going the wooden spoon route, pop the butter and sugar and beat until pale and well creamed. Add the sweetened condensed milk and follow that in with the oats, flour and bicarb mixture.
When it's all combined add the egg, and finally, when the egg is mixed, add the chocolate .

Pour this pale mixture into the lined tin, and spread it out as well as you can. The edges are quite deeply golden and starting to shrink in from the sides - about 25 to 35 minutes. It will look to be very wobbly beneath the surface - this is a good thing! It will firm on standing, and become the lovely chewy inside and crispy outside you are after.