Macadamia Nut Blondies
1/2 cup Earth Balance spread
1 cup evaporated cane juice
1/2 cup vegan brown sugar
1/2 cup soy milk or lite coconut milk
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract (it's best if it doesn't have any alcohol added)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup halved or chopped macadamia nuts (dry roasted and unsalted or lightly salted)
1 cup vegan chocolate or white chocolate chips
I just got back from Hawaii and I made these at least four times while I was there. If you can get macadamia nuts from Hawaii, they're the best kind to use.
Preheat oven to 350-375.
Cream your margarine, sugar, and liquids. Add baking soda and salt, blend, and then add the flour. Blend until smooth and add more liquid if it won't blend easily. (Batter should be more fluid than cookie batter but thicker than cake batter).
Stir in macadamia nuts and chips (optional).
Pour into a prepared dish and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Enjoy! (And go visit Hawaii one day for great food and lots of exercise!)
SO HOW'D IT GO?
OH MY GOSH!!! These are wonderful!! I have tried and failed for years to get the right mixture for blondies. THANK YOU SO MUCH for posting this one!! I followed your recipe (except cane juice-I used unbleached white sugar) and they turned out great! I did have to bake about 33 minutes.
Thank you for this recipe! I LOVE the idea and taste of using coconut milk instead of soy. I really like all the ingredients involved.
I made these exactly following the recipe, except for adding 1/2 t. of baking powder. Maybe I shouldn't have done this, because they turned out cakey. Tasty, but not the chewy gooey blondie I was hoping for. The dough was delicious, better than the end result.
I will keep this recipe on hand, but remember to NOT add baking powder, and DON't overcook them. And again, this turned out like cake, not blondies! Disappointing...but not a flop.
So I tried this recipe a third time, following it exactly except using white flour and using 1 heaping teaspoon of baking powder rather than baking soda. It came out considerably better than the 2nd time, but not nearly as delicious as the 1st. It had the right look and texture, but the flavor was bland - it lacked the caramel-y flavor I achieved in the 1st batch. So I don't know - maybe my first time was a fluke and I'll never be able to replicate its deliciousness! Hopefully some other users will attempt it and have ideas as to how to fix it, but until then, I throw in the towel on this one. :-(
Yes, there is. I buy it from VeganEssentials.com - they have both a white chocolate bar and white chocolate chips, but take it from me, the bar is much better (tastes JUST like regular white chocolate), albeit more expensive. VeganStore.com also sells it, but I cannot vouch for its taste, since I have never tried their kind.
I omitted the macadamia nuts completely and chopped up half a large bar of vegan white chocolate
There's no such thing as Vegan white chocolate, is there? Even the Tropical Source white chocolate bars have milk powder in them.
Well, now I don't know what to think about this recipe. The first time I made it, I totally messed with it, and it came out delicious; this time, I followed the recipe to the T (minus the nuts), and it was a disaster. :-\ I had to bake it for MUCH longer than specified, and it just got puffy, so that when you poked it, it completely deflated. Most of it never baked, but I tasted the part that did and it was disgusting. Rather disappointing, considering how difficult it is to get vegan white chocolate chips and how expensive they are. I'll probably try again, given how delicious it was last time, but this time I had to throw it out because I have non-vegan around, and I don't want them to think our desserts are sub-par. Next time, I'll try the baking powder again, as well as the white flour, and we'll see how it goes. I'm temporarily going to have to change my rating to 3 stars though, to be fair.
I think the best sign of a good recipe is when you can mess with it a lot, and it still comes out good - and this is especially true with baked goods, since they are very easy to screw up. This is the case with this recipe - due to a lack of supplies, I had to get creative, but they still came out delicious. First of all, I doubled the recipe. I used white sugar for the evaporated cane juice and since I only had dark brown sugar, I used a little less and replaced the remainder with more white (so it wasn't too molasses-y). I had to use artificial vanilla extract (gross, I know, but I'm at my grandma's and it's all she has), I substituted baking powder for the baking soda, and used white flour instead of whole wheat pastry. I had to add quite a bit more soymilk to get the right consistency. I omitted the macadamia nuts completely and chopped up half a large bar of vegan white chocolate which I sprinkled on top. I used a 9x7 pan so the blondies were SUPER thick, so they required more cooking time - I didn't time it, but I'd say about 30 minutes at 375. They were baked perfectly when they were a deep golden brown on top and the toothpick came out clean. So, after all that messing around (and, honestly, since they hadn't been reviewed before), I was nervous they'd bomb, but they were AWESOME - even my scared-of-vegan-food grandparents loved them. Yay! Thanks so much for this recipe - I'll definitely make it again, but next time closer to the actual recipe, and with more white chocolate. Mmmmm... :-)