The Nutty, Green Ingredient You Should Be Adding To Blondies

Adding a nutty component to sweet treats proves to be quite common in the baking world. Who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies dotted with walnuts? Or carrot cake loaded not only with pineapple and coconut but with the delightful addition of toasted pecans? 

However, one might argue there's an unspoken division between those who enjoy chocolate brownies with nuts and those who don't. But what about blondies? Do most standard blondie bar recipes contain a nutty component?

If you aren't familiar, blondies are cake-like squares similar to chocolate brownies but made instead with brown sugar and vanilla. Browned butter often serves as a signature element to these sweet treats, imparting a buttery caramel flavor in each chewy bite. In fact, did you know that blondies made their debut in the culinary world almost a decade before the wildly popular chocolate brownie? 

In trying to gauge whether or not most blondie recipes contain nuts, if the first recorded brownie recipe is any indication of the present, then we can safely assume most blondie recipes include nuts to create more depth in flavor and texture. The first recorded brownie recipe, which happens to be a blondie recipe, was published in 1896 and contained butter, molasses, and — sure enough — pecan pieces. 

If you're making blondies but tired of adding the same old pecans and walnuts, there's one ingredient you may want to try: an ingredient that's not only nutty and smooth but surprisingly green in color.

Apart from using Duff Goldman's #1 tip to totally transform your blondies, you may want to try a new and exciting ingredient to upgrade your favorite dessert. On a recent episode of Bon Appétit's "Test Kitchen Talks" on YouTube, food editor Kendra Vaculin reveals her favorite ingredient to add to a pan of rich and buttery blondies, and it's not walnuts or peanut butter. Vaculin whips out a jar of cream of pistachio which looks a lot like your favorite nut butter but with a tad more creaminess and a slightly thicker consistency. Vaculin describes how home chefs can use cream of pistachio or pistachio butter just like any other nut butter, such as peanut or almond butter. She enjoys adding a swirl of the creamy green spread to blondie batter before baking, describing how blondies are a nice neutral dessert that allows the distinct pistachio flavor to really shine through and take center stage.

These tiny green seeds also work well with many other flavors including citrus, all varieties of chocolate, and dried fruits such as dates and apricots. You can add a swirl or two of this new exciting product to your blondie batter plus a handful or two of your favorite dried fruit for extra depth. 

If you're partly on the fence about transforming your favorite dessert into a pistachio-flavored confection, there are many other delicious ways you can upgrade your favorite blondie recipe.

For those of you who aren't entirely sure about dedicating an entire pan of one of your favorite desserts to pistachio butter, the good news is you have endless options to change up blondies' neutral flavor profile of butterscotch and vanilla. Vincente cream of pistachio, which is the brand featured on Bon Appétit's "Test Kitchen Talks," can be quite pricey costing $30 for one 7-ounce jar on Amazon. If your budget doesn't align with this creamy alternative, yet you still want that one-of-a-kind pistachio flavor, feel free to use chopped pistachios instead.

While you could make white chocolate macadamia blondies, if you want to try something other than nuts, BBC Good Food shows how small additions like rhubarb and custard, and even malted milk, can transform your regular pan of vanilla treats into a completely different dessert. Blondies are definitely one confection that can be transformed in an instant depending on what ingredients you decide to use. Smitten Kitchen recommends a multitude of variations, suggesting flavor extracts besides vanilla, such as almond or peppermint, and even adding ¼ cup of your favorite liquor to the batter and increasing the flour by 1 tablespoon. 

Whether you add a swirl or two of pistachio butter or extra chocolate chips, blondies are a versatile dessert that tastes delicious no matter which recipe you decide to use.