Brown butter cherry chocolate blondies

We managed to beat the birds this year in collecting a lot of our cheeries, and this was the first recipe we tried (original recipe here) although we didn't follow it faithfully it was totally a favourite for the summer of lockdown!

Ingredients

Blondies

• 10 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
• 1tbl flax seed in 3tbl of water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch salt
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 cup ripe cherries, pitted and quartered
• 100g chocolate, chopped into small pieces, approx 0.5mm

Topping

• 1/4 cup ripe cherries, pitted and quartered
• 30g semisweet chocolate, chopped

Method

• Make Brown Butter: Cook butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until it foams, turns clear, and then turns a deep brown, apparently this should take about 6mins but it took longer. The butter separates and leaves grainy pieces in the bottom. I filter out the grainy bits. Pour brown butter into a medium bowl and let cool to room temperature.
• Preheat oven to 180c and line an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper
• Add brown sugar, flax seed egg replacement, extract, and salt to bowl and whisk until smooth. 
• Fold in flour just until incorporated, then fold cherries and chocolate into batter. 
• Scrape batter into prepared pan and use a piece of parchment paper coated with nonstick spray to press batter evenly into pan. 
• Top with remaining cherries and chocolate, pressing gently into the batter; tap pan sharply to remove air bubbles.
• Bake for approx 35 minutes, until golden and set in the middle, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few crumbs attached. 
• Cool completely in pan on a wire rack.  Carefully lift parchment to remove bars from pan and place on a cutting board; cut into squares with a sharp knife.