Let’s be real, autumn and winter are the best baking months. Comfy, cozy spices, lots of chocolate, apples, pears, pumpkin, peppermint, it’s the ideal time of year for baking. Today we’re combining comfy, cozy spices with apples to make these brown butter apple cinnamon blondies!
Blondies are basically cookies in bar/square form so I guess these are also brown butter apple cinnamon cookie bars, but that doesn’t roll off the tongue as well, so we’re sticking with blondies!
This recipe genuinely couldn’t be easier and will make your kitchen smell SO GOOD.
We’ll start off chopping up a couple of Granny Smith apples. Put them in a pan and combine them with some maple syrup (if you can get your hands on Apple Brandy Maple Syrup from Runamok Maple, that’s what I recommend!) and brown sugar and let them cook until they’re starting to soften. Set those aside to cool, then we make our blondie batter.
For the batter, we’re going to brown some butter and let that cool down. While that’s cooling, combine your dry ingredients (flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt) in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, combine the cooled brown butter with brown sugar, then add the eggs. Finally, some vanilla. With the vanilla, err on the side of too much rather than too little. There’s really no such thing as too much vanilla!
Now we’ll add in our dry ingredients, mix it up (not too much!), then stir in our cooked apple. Put it in a pan, sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar and throw it in the oven. Waiting for the to cool down is the hardest part, but I promise it’s worth the wait!
Brown Butter Apple Cinnamon Blondies
Ingredients
- Blondies:
- 1 cup unsalted butter, browned and cooled
- 2 cups light brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 tbsp. Vanilla extract
- 2 cups flour
- 1 heaped tsp. Cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. Nutmeg
- 1 tsp. Baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 1/2 Granny Smith apples, chopped
- 1 1/2 tbsp. Maple syrup
- Sprinkle cinnamon
- Cinnamon Sugar Topping:
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 tsp cinnamon
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 350°F and grease a 9 x 13″ baking dish. Set aside.
- Step 2 Combine the apples, maple syrup, and a sprinkle of cinnamon in a pan, cook, stirring occasionally, until the apples are starting to soften. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
- Step 3 Brown the butter and set it aside to cool. While the butter is cooling, in a bowl combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt.
- Step 4 In a large bowl, mix together the cooled brown butter and brown sugar. Once combined, add the eggs and vanilla extract and stir until fully incorporated.
- Step 5 Add in the flour mixture, stir to combine (ok to leave a few flour streaks), then add in the chopped apples.
- Step 6 Pour the mixture into your prepared baking dish. Combine the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the batter. Bake 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before cutting.
