Almond Blondies

This post is sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill. They make a huge range of quality products including the gluten-free almond meal I used for these blondies. Check them out on Facebook and follow them on Twitter for lots of fun recipe ideas.

My favorite kinds of gluten-free items are the ones that aren’t forced to be gluten-free. I think it’s pretty hard to make gluten-free bread at home that is anywhere as delicious as real bread. Of course, if you have a gluten intolerance you have very little say in the matter.

But there are a bunch of baking recipes where gluten is sort of a by-product of using flour in the recipe when in reality the gluten isn’t important to the recipe. Any kind of baked dessert bar is a great example. In fact, I substituted 100% of the flour in a normal blondie recipe with almond meal for this Almond Blondies recipe and they were actually better than the original.

Almond Blondies

Print Pin

3.90 from 20 votes

Author: Nick Evans

Servings: 9 Servings

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour

Soft and flaky blondies made with Bob’s Red Mill almond meal. Packed with macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips. Naturally gluten-free!

Ingredients 

• ½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 ½ cups almond meal
• 1 teaspoon corn starch
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup white chocolate chips
• ½ cup macadamia nuts

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium bowl (almond meal, corn starch, baking powder, and salt).
• In a slightly larger bowl, beat together eggs, melted and cooled butter, and sugar until it’s an even consistency.
• Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Once combined, fold in nuts and chocolate.
• Lightly butter an 8×8 baking dish and transfer batter to dish.
• Bake blondies for 35-40 minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Baking them at a lower temperature prevents the almond meal from burning.
• When done, let cool for 10 minutes before slicing and serving. The blondies should continue to setup as they cool. If they are really wet still, store them in the fridge for an hour and they should firm up nicely.

Nutrition

Serving: 1Bar | Calories: 421kcal | Carbohydrates: 37g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 29g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 8g | Trans Fat: 0.4g | Cholesterol: 66mg | Sodium: 113mg | Potassium: 74mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 33g | Vitamin A: 371IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 87mg | Iron: 1mg

Course: Desserts

Cuisine: American

Almond Blondies Batter

Let’s face it: Flour isn’t exactly known for having a good flavor. But almond flour is a different beast entirely. It’s really light and almost fluffy and has a subtle almond flavor that can take a standard blondie recipe to another level.

To start the batter, just whisk together all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Nothing too tricky here.

Then stir together the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. For the butter, be sure to melt it and let it cool before mixing it in or you might accidentally cook your eggs!

Then stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and your batter is done. I said it takes 15 minutes to make this batter but that’s if you are the slowest stirrer in the world.

It’s probably closer to five minutes.

Any time you make a blondie or brownie, you would be remiss (in my opinion) to not include some fun add ins.

I went with white chocolate and macadamia nuts because those keep the blondie theme going and also taste great with almonds.

Baking the Almond Blondies

When you’re ready to bake, there’s only one thing to note. Before transferring the blondie batter to an 8×8 baking dish, be sure to lightly butter the dish which will help with blondie removal later.

Almond meal has a tendency to burn easier than flour. To make sure that I didn’t burn these blondies, I actually baked them at a much lower 300 degrees and baked them for longer than I normally would. Mine needed about 40 minutes to firm up, but I would start checking around 35 minutes.

Then the blondies are browned around the edges and mostly set in the center, they are done. As they cool, they will set up even more.

I actually thought these blondies were best after chilling in the fridge for a few hours because they setup really well and were nice and dense.

If you happen to be on the gluten-free train or if you just like really good blondies, you have to give these a shot. Blondies are one of those things that can actually be improved by ditching the flour so you might as well do it!