Peanut Butter and Jelly Blondies

I always loved brownies. Like, my whole life that have been one of my all-time favorite things, like Tigger and baseball. However, as I do more and more baking, I am definitely starting to lean more towards things that are not necessarily all chocolate.

Like blondies.

To me, they’re a perfect mixture of the cakey-ness I love, but other flavors too. I’ve made a version on here with chocolate, and I wanted to see if I could make one without chocolate (though I won’t be mad if you threw a couple handfuls of chocolate chips into these too).

Blondies are super versatile. It’s easy to mix and match different ingredients to get the flavors you’re looking for. Here, I went for something I could make with my nieces, so I chose peanut butter and jelly and it really works. It does make me want to try a peanut butter and chocolate version, too, so we’ll see about that one for the future…

You’ll see that I had a LOT of help with this one. We had a family reunion in Martha’s Vineyard to celebrate my mom’s birthday and I had not one, not two, but three helpers in the form of my nieces.

Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

· 2 cups dark brown sugar

· 1 cup butter, softened to room temperature

· 1 cup creamy peanut butter, divided

· 1 t baking powder

· 1 t salt

· 2 eggs, brought to room temperature

· 3 t vanilla

· 2 ½ cups flour

· Optional – cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

· ½ cup raspberry preserves (or strawberry or grape)

· Additional sea salt to sprinkle on top

Directions

Line a 9” x 13” baking pan with aluminum foil and set it aside.

In a bowl mix together the brown sugar, butter, ½ cup of the peanut butter, baking powder and salt. Next, add in the two eggs and vanilla and again mix until very well combined.

Finally, add in the flour and mix that until well combined. If you’re including chocolate chips (we didn’t, and it didn’t need them), this is where to do it.

Spread the batter into the lined baking pan. Next, in separate small bowls microwave the peanut butter and the preserves, in 5 second intervals. The goal here is NOT to liquefy them – all you want to do is to make them easier to spread.

Place alternate tablespoons of peanut butter and preserves on the top of the batter. Using a butter knife or small spatula, swirl the peanut butter and preserves (it’s ok if some of the batter gets mixed in). Finish by sprinkling sea salt on the top.