Time for a healthy treat - Chia Seed Blondies

Many may have heard of brownies before but have you come across its sister, blondie? 

A brownie is a cross between a soft cookie and cake and is always chocolate flavoured whilst a blondie is the non-chocolate version of brownie. According to a source, blondie contains butterscotch and butterscotch is basically the combination of melted butter and brown sugar used in the recipe.You can tell that both brownie and blondie got their names from their colour. 

There are three textures to brownies/ blondies , fudgy, chewy and cakey. Fudgy brownie is totally moist and dense whilst cakey tends to be light and crumbly. Chewy is somewhere in between fudgy and cakey. Out of the three, I'd go for chewy. A balance in everything would be good, don't you think?

I got a bottle of Mayver's Chia Seeds Super Spread from my bff as a souvenir from Australia. Since I didn't want to just eat it with toast, I decided to use some of it to make chia seed blondies. This is really good stuff!


I gathered some blondie and brownie recipes, sought the advice of my mum and came up with a chewy high fiber blondie recipe. The high fiber content comes from chia seeds.

You can't really tell from the picture but the chocolate  cracked when I was cutting the blondie

As for the decorations, after seeing the brownies by Martha Stewart which have a top layer of dark chocolate and beautiful swirls of white chocolate, I wanted to try the same. I didn't want to do the usual drizzling of chocolate on the blondie.


I've been trying recipes by Martha Stewart since my uni days and still love her recipes but I would alter the recipe to be less sweet and rich. Don't you think western recipes are always so rich and sweet?


If you want to make chewy brownies / blondies, these are the tips to bear in mind:-

* The ratio of the flour should be less than butter and sugar.
* Use melted butter for moister texture.
* Do not use baking powder. Egg white should be adequate as leavening agent.
* Do not overbake. Test 15 minutes into baking. When toothpick is inserted into center of blondie, you would want to see moist crumbs on toothpick. If toothpick comes out completely wet, blondie is undercooked, whilst totally clean and dry it's overcooked.
* Remove the blondie from pan only when it has completely cooled.

Ingredients:-
For blondies

120g butter, melted
100g brown sugar
1 large egg
50g peanut butter spread (I used Mayver's Original Chia Seed Super Spread. Use no-sugar added spread for healthier option.)
1 tbsp chia seeds
140g all-purpose flour, sifted

For chocolate top
250g semi-sweet dark chocolate
50g white chocolate

Method:-
Whisk melted butter and sugar in a stand mixer until combined.

Add in egg and vanilla extract and continue whisking until smooth. As you don't want to aerate the mixture too much, don't over-whisk.

Add peanut butter spread and chia seeds. Fold in sifted flour and combine well. Pour into an 8" square pan. Bake in preheated oven at 170°c for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out with only moist crumbs when inserted into center of the blondie.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is so yummy for breakfast

I think I should have add more of the spread and tiny bit more sugar since the blondie itself was not sweet enough. But with the chocolate, the sweetness was just nice. As for the flavour, it could have been enhanced by adding dollops of spread on the batter before baking. The crunch from the chia seeds was fun.


I think the colour is a bit light. Mental note to use darker brown sugar next time. The blondie didn't turn out as chewy as I wanted it to be. Maybe I should reduce baking time to 10 minutes since it's such a thin layer.


The blondie will be delicious with the minor improvements. Try it out and tell me how it goes!

Happy baking! xx