White Chocolate Chip Blondies

Happy Easter all! And if you were about to accuse me of being late to issue those wishes, I'll have you know that today is Greek Easter and as I'm half Greek, I'm in fact right on time :)

How did you all spend your non-Greek Easter? I have to say it actually passed me by as I was in New York and lots of people over there don't have the Friday and Monday off work like we do here and on the Sunday, we were making our way back to NYC from a wedding in Maryland so yeah, I barely even noticed it was Easter. I didn't even get a chocolate egg :(

NYC was amazeballs as usual! I stayed with the amazing Onada and her husband (thanks again!) My time there flew by and I wasn't ready to come back but not to worry, while I was there, I sampled lots and lots of cupcakes! See my list below! This is in no particular order as they were all really good!

1) Sprinkles: I had the Brown Sugar Praline cupcake and it was yummy! Caramel cake with brown sugar frosting and topped with crunchy praline! Their cake was light and fresh and the frosting not too sweet!
2) Magnolia: I went to the shop in Bloomingdales and had a lemon cupcake! It was filled with lemon cream and tasted exactly as a lemon cupcake should! I'mma search through my two Magnolia baking books in search of this recipe!
3) Crumbs: Seriously huge cupcakes! And soooo many flavours! If you're intending to buy only one (like I was), this could be one of the hardest decisions you ever have to mae! Did I mention that they're almost all filled cupcakes? I can't remember what I had but it was really good!
4) Two Little Red Hens: This is a really cute bake shop with wonderful looking layer cakes. I had a yellow cake with meringue frosting which I wasn't too keen on. It's the meringue frosting which is so popular in the US that was the problem. It tastes like butter! Give me good old buttercream or cream cheese frosting any day! But I went back and had a Boston Cream Pie cupcake which was very good! The sponge fluffy and light, the pastry cream tasty and covered in chocolate ganache.

Anyway, back to reality - where I have to bake my own desserts.

These blondies were supposed be funfetti (American word for sprinkles) blondies but I guess my sprinkles were too small (unlike the probably massive sprinkles the Americans have - y'know, with everything being bigger there and all) and melted into the batter. Head on over to Beantown Baker's blog to see what they look like with sprinkles. They were very very good though! The almond extract gives them a really special flavour. I can't wait to make them again!

Ingredients

198g butter, melted
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 180C / Gas Mark 4 / 350F
2. Line a 9 x 13inch pan with greaseproof paper and grease lightly
3. In a large, microwave safe mixing bowl, melt the butter. Allow to cool for 5 minutes
4. Mix the sugars with the melted butter and beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then the extracts.
5. Add salt, stir in flour and baking powder. Stir in white chocolate chips.
6. Pour into prepared pan and use a greased spatula to evenly spread mixture in pan and level the top. Bake for 24 - 28 minutes or until set in the middle. Cool on rack before cutting.