Sometimes you need to treat yourself to a blondie. These dump bar blondies were my mother’s favorite and I’m rather fond of them too.
As many of my friends know through Facebook, I’m going through a bit of back pain and vertigo. Okay, I didn’t share the vertigo thing because really, how much of a hypochondriac does anyone want to sound like?
The truth is, just walking across the floor caused shooting pains from my backside to my feet so I’ve been spending a bit of time with my friendly physiotherapist and doctor. A few things I’ve learned already are.
- Codeine is for hard core people, not for someone like me.
- Stretching muscles hurts
- Acupuncture hurts in the worst-affected areas
- A back plaster feels funny
- There is hope
So while I haven’t been able to cook (or do much of anything for a sustained period) for a week or so, I didn’t want you to feel that I don’t love you. I love writing and cooking and photographing but most of all I love the connection with every one of you. One of my favorite treats when I was a kid were blondies. I have been told they are very much last year but for me, they’ve been every year since I was about 7.
I thought I would share some beauties with you and then give you a recipe for my mother’s blondies that she always called dump bars. Why? She dumped everything in the bowl and mixed.
These butterscotch brownies remind me of my best friend’s mother, Mae. She had 10 ‘only children’ if that makes sense. She might have had ten of them but each one was spoiled and I have no idea how she did it. These blondies are from Jen at Jen’s Favorite Cookies and are simply called Butterscotch Blondies.
My Aunt Louise, my father’s oldest sister (he and his twin were the youngest of 12) used to make the most wonderful peanut butter blondies but I never got her recipe. Then I found Chelsea’s Peanut Butter Blondies on her blog at Gal on a Mission and they reminded me of long ago.
Have you met Jocelyn from Inside Bru Crew Life? She’s got one of the best food blogs and her food is often filled with fun. Last year when I had a friend coming for coffee with her granddaughter I made her M&M Blondies, normal blondies using M&Ms instead of chocolate chips. They were a real treat and the little one was so happy to take the rest of the batch home with her. Good thing because I would have eaten them.
Stephie from Stephie Cooks would have made my father’s day with these Maple Walnut Blondies. Maple walnut was his favorite ice cream and any sweet having those two would make him happy. My dad never weighed more than 128 pounds in his life but he could eat anything and often did. He never refused dessert. If these had been left over from dessert the night before, this is what he would have had for breakfast. WHY did I get his hair color and not his metabolism?? It ain’t fair.
Finally, my mother’s Dump Bars. I think she found this recipe from a recipe columnist in the Portland, Maine newspaper that my parents would get every Sunday. My recipe is handwritten and full of crap from MANY years of making this. I know I could copy it over but it’s nice to keep old favorites looking old. Rather like me, I suspect.
- 2 sticks (227 grams) butter
- 1 pound (453 grams) light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups plain/all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup flaked coconut
- ½ cup chocolate chips
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
- Preheat oven to 160C/325F
- Dump the butter, brown sugar, vanilla, salt and eggs in the top of a double boiler over slowly simmering water and stir to mix the eggs in. Leave over heat only until the butter is melted.
- Remove from the double boiler and dump in everything but the coconut, chocolate chips and walnuts.
- Beat well and then add in the coconut, chocolate chips and walnuts.
- Turn into a greased 8" x 12" x 2" pan and bake for 40 minutes. Cool in the pan and cut into bars.
Okay, I’ll admit it. I started the post and was only going to do a roundup of great looking blondies but the photos made me so hungry that I made my mother’s Dump Bar Blondies. I’m a sad case. It’s taken me ALL day to do this. I have two suggestions for you.
1. Never ignore nagging pain. It won’t go away and you might end up pinching a nerve so badly you won’t be able to get around.
2. Don’t get old. 🙂