Now for a deep philosophical question: is a brownie still a brownie without the chocolate? No, in that case it would be a blondie. These bars are perfect when you’re craving the dense and chewy texture of a brownie but don’t want chocolate. Yes, a girl can get sick of chocolate after ingesting too much chocolate mousse. I lightened the recipe by using 5 tbsp of butter rather than a whole stick. These bars have plenty of fat from the almonds, so they were still wonderfully moist, although they might not keep as long. But do you really expect to have them laying around for a whole week? They even develop the characteristic skin you get from boxed brownie mix, except these don’t have nasty-tasting artificial ingredients.

Fruity Almond Blondies
Adapted from Alice Medrich’s Cookies and Brownies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup whole almonds, with or without skins
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
5 tbsp unsalted butter
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
1 large egg
1/4 tsp almond extract or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried tart cherries, cranberries, chopped apricots or any dried tart fruit

Equipment:
8-inch square pan, lined across the bottom and up two opposite sides with parchment paper or foil

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Toast the almonds for 15-20 minutes, or until brown. Stir halfway between baking to ensure even coloring.

Move the rack to the lower third of the oven and continue to heat the oven.

Process the almonds with the flour in a food processor, until the almonds are fine. Add the salt and baking powder and pulse to mix.

Toss the fruit with one tablespoon of the flour mixture so they won’t sink to the bottom of the bar. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar. Using a wooden spoon, beat in the egg and almond/vanilla extract. Stir in the flour mixture, followed by the dried fruit. Spread the batter evenly in the pan.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and have pulled away from the sides of the pan and the top is light golden brown. Cool in the pan. Run a knife along the unlined sides of the pan. Lift the ends of the paper or foil liner and transfer to a cutting board. Cut into 16 squares.

Can be stored, airtight, for at least one week.

Notes: Dream up your own creation by substituting any nuts or dried fruits! Pine nuts would give an Italian twist, pistachio is popular among food blogs like Chocolate and Zucchini and The Food Section, and walnuts would make a richer bar. Tart fruit is recommended to offset the sweetness of the bar.

Somewhere along the line, oat cuisine got elevated from standard horsefeed into gourmet granola. Nowadays, you can get granola in designer flavors like apple cinnamon, mocha, sunflower seed this and dried cranberry that. I don’t understand why companies charge $5 for little sacks, especially when the main ingredient is what Romans considered a diseased version of wheat (according to Good Eats).

Homemade granola is dirt cheap and more delicious than commercial varieties. It puts a certain “grrrreat” cereal to shame. This Good Eats recipe makes seriously addictive granola. Other recipes were either too dry, flavorless, or didn’t get the ratio of the add-ins right. But Alton’s version is sweet, salty and crispy but not dry.

Notes/tips:

• Unlike most baking recipes, this recipe is open to ingredient substitions. I halved the amount of nuts and also chopped them so I would get more in each bite. Instead of coconut, I used toasted okara, or soy bean pulp, that was leftover from my homemade soy milk. Okara is a nutritional powerhouse: it’s high in fiber, protein and isoflavones. The granola was a bit too sweet for me, so next time I’ll reduce the sweeteners by 1/4 cup. I didn’t stir in dried fruit, for fear of the moisture transferring over to the crispy oats. But I have a whole slew of choices from Sahadi’s 🙂 that I can add in on a case-by-case basis.
• You may substitute other nuts and seeds for the standard almonds and cashews. You can also use your favorite dried fruit instead of raisins. Some flavoring ideas:
• Holiday spice: use cranberries and add a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice and/or cardamom to taste.
• Nutella: use hazelnuts and add a couple tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder, or to taste.
• Chunky monkey: use banana chips, walnuts, and add in chocolate chips after the granola has cooled.
• Tropical: use pineapple and/or banana chips and macadamias.
• To get chunky granola, pack it in the pan very tightly, as if making one giant bar. After the first stir, the granola will break up into pieces.
• For the best nut flavor, use whole raw nuts and toast them for about 10 min. shortly before consumption. Most nuts, including almonds and hazelnuts, go in a preheated 350 F oven. Walnuts and pecans go in at 325 F. Stir the nuts occassionally and pull them out when they turn light brown, as they’ll continue toasting with the rest of the granola. Raw macadamias are delicate and should brown up fine with the granola.
• Since Alton’s sweetener of choice, maple syrup, is expensive, you can substitute honey, brown rice syrup, or concentrated fruit juice. You may have to tinker with the recipe, as the sweeteners all have varying moisture and sugar content. Imitation maple syrup is not recommended, as it does little for flavor.