White chocolate and cranberry blondies!

It's Christmas season already! I know it's hard to believe, but time flies by and why should anyone complain? Christmas time is my favorite season of the year.

Culturally, there are certain colors, aromas and ingredients that we typically associate with Christmas. Cranberries are one of those ingredients that have the colors and spirit of Christmas.

Usually, I find dried cranberries everywhere but the fresh ones start appearing in late November. I buy them whenever I find a small box filled with those lovely jewels. I rarely eat them fresh as I believe  it´s when cooked or used in baking that their taste goes to another level.

I like to use them with white chocolate, their strong tangy flavor pairs to perfection with the sweetness of the white chocolate. I personally don´t like sweets that are too sweet but I do like white chocolate and whenever I bake it I try to use a sour ingredient, usually a fruit, to have a more balanced and enjoyable flavor.

To feature these two wonderful ingredients,  I used them  in a blondies recipe, the whiter version of one of the most popular and delicious desserts: the brownies. The end result was blondies that were just as delicious as their brownies cousins, perhaps even more.

For this recipe you need (18 x 18 cm pan):

• 80 g fresh cranberries (you can use dry ones but they won´t give the tangy flavor as the fresh ones)
• 100 g butter
• 120 g flour
• 1/4 tsp of salt and another 1/4 tsp of baking soda
• 1 egg
• 100 brown sugar (for optimum results use dark brown sugar, I used panela)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100 g chopped chocolate (small chunks)

First start by combining the flour with the salt and baking soda.

Melt the butter in a sauce pan; you want to melt the butter and not to heat it, just warm it.  Add  the butter to the sugar  and whisk until well combined.
Now add the egg and the vanilla extract and mix well again.
Slowly fold in the flour. Finally, mix in in the chocolate and the cranberries.

Pour the batter in a pan (previously lined with baking paper), and bake them in a preheated oven (180 C; 350 F) for about 20 to 25 min, or until the edges and the top have a golden brown color.

Give this recipe a try and believe me  you will not regret it, it´s just out of this world but beware it might become really addictive!