{"id":7764,"date":"2010-02-19T10:55:12","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T15:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/?p=7764"},"modified":"2021-02-26T13:49:23","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T18:49:23","slug":"vegan-blondies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/vegan-blondies\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet-Tooth Friday: Vegan White Bean Blondies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Sweet-Tooth Friday everybody!  It’s Christine again with your weekly fix of sweet animal-free goodness!  Yep, you asked for it and finally here it is: Vegan White Bean Blondies!<\/p>\n

Out of darkness comes light<\/h2>\n

\"ChristineWell, that’s what the Mayans said, but they probably didn’t know they were predicting the future of my vegan brownies.  When I posted my recipe for Vegan Black Bean Brownies<\/a>, I knew how much I <\/em>loved them but had no idea how much you would enjoy them too!  The response to that recipe alone has been overwhelming and has provided me with a lot of encouragement to keep up with my vegan baking experiments.<\/p>\n

Naturally, my next step was to explore the brownie’s lighter half, the blondie.  But I’ve been nervous about blondies from the beginning— could the beans taste good without the disguise of chocolate?   I think the exact words to describe my first trial run<\/a> of white bean blondies were this: they totally sucked.<\/p>\n

I had simply veganized<\/a> a full-fat-butter-and-eggs version of blondies; after all, that had worked for the Black Bean Brownies<\/a>.  What went wrong then?  Well, I hadn’t thought about what the true flavor of a blondie is.  See, a brownie’s flavor is deep chocolate along with richness from butter and eggs.  In the black bean version, the cocoa powder provides the same amount of chocolate, and the addition of coffee and hazelnuts brings the richness.<\/p>\n

But what’s the flavor of a blondie?  The answer is more than just “not chocolate.”  I thought about it, and decided that blondies should have all the sweetness and saltiness of a chocolate chip cookie but with a denser, gooey-butterscotch flair. I analyzed my black bean brownie recipe and came up with some changes.<\/p>\n

First, I knew I needed to add some more structure to the blondies to make up for the cocoa I was removing.  I chose to use dates for their thickness and to add a sense of dimension to the sweet flavor.  For the rest of the warm-sweetness I was imagining, I added brown sugar.  I also relied on the flavor of good quality dark rum to achieve some of the butterscotch tones, along with some extra salt to trick the tongue.  Finally, for that buttermilk-style tang, I threw in a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.<\/p>\n

I had a tough time deciding on the stir-ins for the blondies— pecans?  coconut?  chocolate chips?  Pretty much anything goes, but after serious contemplation in the grocery store, I chose chopped macadmia nuts for their light buttery flavor, and a small amount of cacao nibs.  The sharp earthiness and crunch of the cacao nibs is a nice complement to the smooth and sweet blondie.<\/p>\n

So, after many months in the making, Behold!  I give you Vegan White Bean Blondies!<\/p>\n

\"Close<\/p>\n

Vegan White Bean Blondies<\/h2>\n

Ingredients:<\/em><\/p>\n