Blondies usually go into one large baking dish, which means only the pieces cut from around the perimeter get those browned, chewy edges. The baker behind The Birchwood Pie Project takes a different route: she puts the batter into muffin pans instead.
Each blondie bakes against the sides of its own cup, creating 24 individual portions with set edges and soft centers. Chocolate chips, chopped pecans, and shredded coconut go into the brown sugar batter, so there’s plenty happening inside those small rounds too.
The recipe can be made in a standard 9-by-13-inch pan, but the muffin-pan method changes both the shape and the amount of edge each blondie gets.
Brown sugar gives the batter its butterscotch base
Two sticks of room-temperature unsalted butter are beaten until soft before 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of granulated sugar go in. The mixture is beaten for three minutes.
Two eggs are added one at a time, followed by a teaspoon of vanilla. Two cups of all-purpose flour and 1/2 teaspoon of salt are then added in stages on low speed until combined.
Brown sugar is a major part of the recipe, and its deeper flavor forms the base for the chocolate, pecans, and coconut added next.
Chocolate, pecans, and coconut go into the same batter
Once the flour is incorporated, the batter gets 6 ounces of chocolate chips, 1 cup of chopped pecans, and 1 cup of sweetened shredded coconut.
Rather than treating any one of them as a topping, all three are mixed through the blondie batter. That puts chocolate, nuts, and coconut throughout each individual portion.
The finished batter is thick enough to scoop, which also makes dividing it among the muffin cups straightforward.
An ice cream scoop portions the batter into 24 cups
After spraying the muffin cups with butter spray, an ice cream scoop is used to distribute the batter. One batch fills 24 muffin cups.
The batter doesn’t need to be packed into the pans. Each scoop gets a light press across the top before baking.
That small change from a rectangular baking dish is what gives the recipe its unusual result. Instead of baking one large blondie and slicing it after it cools, every portion spends the entire bake surrounded by the hot sides of a muffin cup.
They bake until the edges are set but the centers stay soft
The muffin pans go into a 350-degree oven for about 20 minutes. The goal isn’t to wait until the centers become firm. They’re removed once the edges have set while the middles remain soft.
The blondies then stay in the pans for at least five minutes. A knife run around the edges helps release each one before it’s lifted from the cup.
You still get the soft center expected from a blondie, but there’s no need to race for one of the corner pieces. With the muffin-pan method, every blondie gets an edge of its own.
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