Peppermint chocolate chip blondie bites
I’ve definitely done much more holiday related baking this year than last year, and I think it’s always key to make something around Christmas time involving candy canes. Unfortunately, I could not find traditional ones anywhere (seriously grocery stores in the CBD of Sydney are killing me with their lack of options), but I did find some red and green striped very minty ones and figured that would have to do.
These are seriously the perfect Christmas treats. They take more effort than a basic batch of cookies, but it’s 100% worth it. They look adorable and taste fantastic. The candy canes adds extra crunch in the batter and holiday flair on top, and the drizzling of chocolate is just attractive. Seriously, it’s like a chocolate chip cookie but extra good and elevated to amazing bite size Christmas level. Putting them in little mini muffin molds is genius, particularly if you have silicon pans like I do which makes it incredibly easy to pop them out afterward. You can bring these to a potluck or a family dinner or give them away to friends…and you should have all the ingredients (or at least most) to make them right in your pantry, so give them a try! And if you don’t have both kinds of chocolate one will do, although I do like the swirl of white with dark despite my typical opposition to white chocolate.
A word to the wise though: make sure you intend to give some away, because for some reason their mini muffin shape makes them even more addictive than chocolate chip cookies. So have some gift bags handy if you do not want to accidentally consume the entire batch!
Peppermint chocolate chip blondie bites (adapted from Domesticate Me)
Ingredients
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature – per usual I just used 100 grams, even though that’s a bit less than half a cup
- ½ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 extra-large egg, at room temperature
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- 6 crushed candy canes, divided – I used more than these – probably about 8
- 4 ounces dark chocolate, melted
- 8 ounces white chocolate, melted
Pre-heat your oven to 180 C or 350 F. Put liners in a mini muffin tin (it will make about 24) or grease it, or just use an awesome silicon mold and do nothing. Start by crushing your candy canes. Place the candy canes in a Ziploc bag and then crush them using a rolling pin, mallet, or whatever heavy object you have on hand. I used the bottom of a glass. Set aside until ready to use.
For the dough, do your usual butter and both sugars creaming. Then add the vanilla and egg and mix well. Add the baking soda and salt, followed by the following, mixing slowly to incorporate. Then add the chocolate chips and about half of the crushed candy canes and mix it all in. Scoop spoonfuls of the batter into each mini muffin cup. They should all be filled a bit more than half way – the recipe makes more than 24, and I only have capacity for 24, so you can save some of the dough for another time or you can just fill them up till they overflow a little. Bake for about 12 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean and they are nicely browned (but not too brown!). Per usual, you definitely don’t want to overbake and all ovens are different, so check them at about 9 minutes.
- Allow your blondies to cool completely in the pan. I actually made mine the night before and then decorated the next day. To speed up the process though, just pop them in the fridge for a bit. You just want to be able to remove them from the pan in one piece. When you’re ready to decorate, melt your dark chocolate (I just do mine in the microwave). Drizzle generously with the dark chocolate, and then melt the white chocolate as well. Drizzle with white chocolate on top or just add some with a spoon and swirl it around a bit. Sprinkle the top of each blondie with crushed candy canes.
Pause to admire your handiwork (yes this is a step in my opinion) and of course to also let the chocolate set. As with before you can speed up this process by popping them in the fridge or even the freezer.
Creaming butter and sugar and adding of wet ingredients done (sorry I am bored with taking pics of this) and added baking soda and salt
After the flour is added, just dump in a whole bunch of chocolate chips and crushed candy canes
Ready to go in the mini muffin pans
Out of the oven, cooled down, and ready to get drizzled with chocolate!
Completed ones on the left, and ones on the right have been drizzled with dark chocolate and are waiting for the white chocolate and candy cane finishing touch
Glorious finished product. Seriously, how cute are they?
I liked these so much that I promptly made a second whole batch only about five days later, so if that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is. I think this is a great go-to Christmas baked good and you could even adapt it with various holiday themed coloured sprinkles for other holidays…that is if you live in the US and have access to the many more holiday themed options present in Target than there are here…miss you America.
Merry Christmas!
One year ago: Zucchini fritters (ew, who wants healthy things around Christmas anyway. Save it for January)
merrifood 