Thursday, December 16, 2010

Cafe au Lait Blondies


Tom and I are both coffee addicts. Jeremy even gave me a brand spankin' new coffee press for my birthday last week, knowing full well how much I love my morning fix. So, in the midst of trying to catch up on my Christmas baking, how could I resist making coffee-flavored Cafe au Lait Blondies???

I have so many clippings and scraps of recipes, I can't begin to tell you where many of them came from. But the one with the blondie recipe is clearly from the departed Ann Arbor News, which evolved sorta into AnnArbor.com for which I write once-a-week. The printed recipe was adapted from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion.

The house smells like a coffee shop and bakery as these bake, which is always a fabulous fragrance to immerse yourself in! And what better treat to serve with a nice hot cup of coffee than more coffee???

Cafe au Lait Blondies


3 eggs
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup butter, melted
2 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup instant coffee crystals
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 325F. Grease a 9"x13" baking pan.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs and the sugar until thickened. Add the vanilla extract and the butter. Stir in the flour and salt.


Remove 1-1/2 cups of the batter and set aside.

Combine the instant coffee and the cream; stir into the batter that's in the large mixing bowl, then spread the batter into the prepared baking pan.


Stir the walnuts into the batter that you'd reserved, then place dollops of it over the top of the coffee-flavored batter.


Swirl the batters together and smooth the top.


Bake for 30 minutes until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool completely, then cut into small cookies or larger-sized dessert bars.






14 comments:

Kelly said...

What a great idea! These sound delicious!

Miriam said...

I just saw your morning show segment, YAY!!! You did SOOO great!! Miriam@Meatless Meals For Meat Eaters

Sheila said...

David and I are also coffee fiends. When I just yelled the name of this out to him all I heard from the other room was, "Ooooooo!" Then, I told him whose recipe it was and there was a bigger "Ooooooo!" I guess I'll be trying this one, Mary!

Sheila

Unknown said...

mmmmmmmm...yes, I want the whole pan, no need to share with anyone else!!!

Candace said...

I can smell these from here. Yum!

Anonymous said...

Oooooooo, but I do love me some blonde brownies! Happy happy birthday (belated) and enjoy your awesome coffee!

Cranberry Morning said...

Isn't there just something so 'cool' about a coffee press! Your blondies sound amazing. I'd love to smell your kitchen as they're baking too! With a good library and a good recipe and good coffee, who needs Borders?

Same Sweet Girl: Memoir of a Southern Belle said...

Oh wow! Those look AMAZING!!!!!!!!! I love cafe au lait...and brownies...this is dessert perfection! Thanks for the recipe!!! :)

Leanne said...

NOW we're talking!!! YUMMMMOOOOOOO Mary! These look just to die for! Thanks for the recipe - I will definitely try them out!

Andrea the Kitchen Witch said...

these bars should be illegal! They sound amazing - adding coffee to pretty much anything makes me a happy Witch :)

Jean at The Delightful Repast said...

Mary, these look wonderful! Would go great with a glass of my homemade eggnog! Or a cup of tea. Mmm ... must bake.

mypixieblog said...

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY!!! Hope it was fantastic :) I'm looking around for some seasonally appropriate cookies and these will definitely do the trick--they look fantastic!

Rachel Cotterill said...

I love coffee and I love cake - so any variety of coffee cake has me drooling! :)

Anonymous said...

I've never heard of Cafe au Lait Blondies before...but they look awesome...and hopefully taste so too^^
I'm gonna give them a try, because I love coffee =)
thx for the recipe.

xoxo


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