Blondies

Blondies, like brownies, are one of those things that I've always struggled with. I've just never been able to find a recipe that I really liked...until today. I finally made it out last night and got some items to replenish the Pantry, and was originally planning on making some kind of biscotti. I ended up searching Allrecipes for top recipes that used chocolate chips, and came across one for blondies, and figured I'd give it a go. Of course, I had to mess with the original recipe (you'd think 400 people rating it 5 stars would tell me it's already perfect, right?....Uhhhh, no.) but I really liked the end result.

Blondies
2/3 c. melted butter
2 c. brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
a couple glugs of vanilla extract (around 1 tbsp.)
2 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. shredded coconut (I put this through a small food processor to make it finer)
1 pkg. chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until light and on the fluffier side (you won't be able to get it super fluffy because the butter is melted, but it will increase some in volume.) Add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and coconut until combined. Mix in chocolate chips.

Spread batter evenly in a prepared 9x13 pan (I actually will probably use either a 11x15 or a 1/2 sheet next time, as I like bar cookies to be on the thin and wide side.) Bake for approximately 30 minutes. They will be slightly gooey on the inside, but will set up when cooled.

I think the only thing I will do differently next time is use milk chocolate chips...the store I went to was out of them last night, and semi-sweet were only $1.24 a package...I'm just not a big fan of semi-sweet, though. Still, the blondies were still great, and I will be cutting them up in the morning and adding them to my shipment of other cookies to send to a solider in Iraq!