Dark Chocolate Dreams / Chocolate Chip Blondies

I recently saw some mouth-watering Pecan and Date Blondies over at Another One Bites the Crust, which were adapted from the famous VeggieGirl Blondies. Nothing inspires you to bake like another frustrating day of house-hunting. Hubby and I drove around looking for open houses and found 1 we liked, though it didn’t knock our socks off.

Nothing cheers you up like baking, though, right?

I decided to do my own play on the recipe.

I wanted to try the Pecan and Date version because it sounded delish, but I didn’t have pecans or dates on hand and I was feeling too lazy to go to the store (especially after driving all around town looking for houses). I knew I had chocolate chips, though, so I zeroed in on those. I also noticed that the recipe said to dollop PB on top of the batter and since I’ve been infatuated with my Dark Chocolate Dreams since finding it last Thursday, I knew some DCD PB just HAD to be added to my blondies. (Have you noticed I haven’t gone 1 day without eating DCD yet??? Sad, I know)

Wet ingredients

I guess baking wouldn’t be baking without a slight mess in the kitchen?

A little ground flaxseed for fun.

Mini Chocolate Chips stirred with a little flour to keep them from settling.

And since I have it in my pantry now, I figured a couple dollops of my Dark Chocolate Dreams were in order.

I baked half the blondies topped with sliced almonds as an experiment.

The almonds were, IMO, a mistake because they didn’t cut very well. Perhaps if they were more broken up they’d make for a better addition?

Holy yum!

Dark Chocolate Dreams / Chocolate Chip Blondies
Adapted from the recipe by Another One Bites the Crust who adapted the recipe from VeggieGirl

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup skim milk
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 tsp molasses
• 1 + 1/4 cup Trader Joe’s White Wheat Flour, plus 1 tbsp
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp ground flaxseed
• Peanut Butter & Co Dark Chocolate Dreams PB (a couple tsps)
• 1/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• handful sliced almonds, optional

Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray 8×8 baking pan with non-stick spray and line bottom with parchment paper.
• Whisk together milk, oil, sugar, molasses, and vanilla extract.
• Sift 1 + 1/4 cup flour and baking soda into the wet ingredients.
• Stir until combined.
• Stir chocolate chips and 1 tbsp flour in a small, separate bowl. Add to the batter and stir gently.
• Pour the batter into your baking dish.
• Dollop a couple tsp of Dark Chocolate Dreams and gently swirl into the batter.
• Optional step: sprinkle sliced almonds on top.
• Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
• Let blondies cool, then cut into 16 pieces, and see if you can stop yourself from eating the whole batch…lol. jk 🙂 ENJOY!