Martha Stewart says that when you make things with chocolate in them, if you want really fantastic results, you have to use the best ingredients that you have available. Ghirardelli, in my opinion, is the best chocolate that is readily available.
Domingo Ghirardelli (pronounced: GEAR-ar-deli), was an immigrant from Italy who thought he’d strike it rich in the gold rush. Thankfully for us, he didn’t and instead began a company to sell supplies and treats to miners. He was destroyed by one of San Francisco’s great fires in 1851, rebuilt in 1852 and had a series of failed businesses. But his confectionery business took root and is now world famous. Did you know that Ghirardelli Chocolates is the oldest continuously running chocolate manufacturer? It’s also one of the very few American companies that starts with real cocoa beans to achieve the finished product. If you have opportunity to visit Ghirardelli’s, I highly recommend it. But for now, here is a little version of their blondies that I came up with last night. (Can you handle the sweetness?)
You will need:
4 bars of Ghirardelli white chocolate (4 oz. each for a total of 16 oz.)
1/2 cup unsalted butter cut into small pieces
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp. salt
1 cup finely chopped walnuts (or macademia nuts)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 and line a 9 x 9 inch square pan with waxed paper. Grease the paper.
Break 2 of the bars up into small pieces. Combine in a microwave safe bowl, with the butter. Place chocolate in microwave oven and microwave for approximately 1 minute on 50% power. Remove and stir and if it’s not melted, stick it back in for 10 second increments. (Don’t worry if not all of the chocolate is completely melted as it will continue melting after you take it out.) Set aside.
Beat eggs until foamy with an electric mixer. Add sugar, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture to the eggs very slowly.
Chop up the other two white chocolate bars into small pieces.
Fold into the egg-chocolate mixture the flour, salt and white chocolate chunks.
Spoon mixture into prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes.
You’ll definitely need a tall glass of milk for this!
Related Blogs:
Cooking with Kids: White Chocolate Pretzels
White Chocolate Fudge with Brownie Chunks
Valorie Delp shares recipes and kitchen tips in the food blog, solves breastfeeding problems, shares parenting tips, and current research in the baby blog, and insight, resources and ideas as a regular guest blogger in the homeschooling blog. To read more articles by Valorie Delp, click here.
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