Red, White, and Blondies

It’s summertime, which means America’s birthday, fireworks, celebrations, and most importantly, red, white, and blue desserts.

These Red, White, and Blondies are the patriotic cousin to my Chocolate Chip Blondies. I came out with this recipe when I was craving a chocolate chip cookie but didn’t have the time to go through the chilling process and make each cookie shape. I threw together this recipe and put it in a brownie pan, and voila.

What is a Blondie?

Blondies are essentially blonde brownies (hence the name). It’s almost like a brownie and a chocolate chip cookie had a baby. If you like brownies, and chocolate chip cookies, wait until you try these Red, White, and Blondies! They’re rich, chewy, and will melt in your mouth. The best part? This recipe is super simple that even the most inexperienced baker can follow along and succeed! Say goodbye to your boxed desserts.

Ingredients

Flour: All-purpose flour is the best type of flour for this recipe. Make sure you spoon and level your flour, and don’t pack it in because you’ll end up with 50% more flour than expected, which will result in a dry dough.
Baking Soda: Baking soda is classic and will help the blondies get a nice height.
Butter: Unsalted butter at room temperature is what we’ll be using for these Red, White, and Blondies. Unsalted butter is best so that you can control how much salt is being put into this recipe. The reason we want our butter to be at room temperature is so the butter can cream with the sugars and avoid any lumps. Click here to learn how to soften your butter to room temperature in minutes!
Salt: Adding salt is recommended to help balance out the sweetness. If you’re using salted butter, you can omit this step.
Sugar: White sugar and light brown sugar will pack the right amount of sweetness into these blondies.
Eggs: The eggs will help bind the batter together, and two is all we need.
Vanilla Extract: This will give us that classic taste.
Toppings: To make these blondies festive, we’re using sprinkles and M&M’s. Look for the red, white, and blue packages for that American twist.
Food Coloring: A few drops of red and blue gel food coloring will do. Keep in mind, that we’ll be separating the colors.

How to Make Red, White, and Blondies?

In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream the butter and white and brown sugars with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. This process will take two to three minutes. Next, add the eggs and vanilla extract, and mix to combine. Make sure you do not overmix. Add the all-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt into your stand mixer bowl, and mix until fully incorporated.

Divide the batter into three bowls. One bowl will be red, another bowl will be blue, and the other bowl will stay the plain dough color. Be sure to leave a little extra dough in the plain colored bowl, and set it aside. Add two drops of red gel food coloring to one bowl, and two drops of blue gel food coloring to the other bowl. If you would like the colors to be a little deeper, add another drop of food coloring until you reach your desired shade.

Add two tablespoons of the sprinkles and two tablespoons of the M&Ms to the red batter. Repeat with the blue batter, and add three tablespoons of the sprinkles and M&Ms to the vanilla batter. Mix each to combine. Note: Do not mix the three batters together. Mix separately.

Spread out the vanilla batter evenly into your greased 9″ pan. Add dollops of the blue and red batters on top of the vanilla batter. Smooth out the top with an offset spatula. Sprinkle the last tablespoon of sprinkles and the last tablespoon of M&Ms on top of your blondies before baking.

Preheat your oven to 350°F and bake for 20-25 minutes. You’ll know the blondies are done when a toothpick from the center comes out clean. Allow them to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Gluten-Free

Gluten-Free: To make these Red, White, and Blondies gluten-free, use gluten-free flour instead of all-purpose flour. Make sure you’re using a 1 to 1 baking flour like this one.

Dairy-Free: Substitute butter with margarine or a neutral-flavored oil like vegetable or canola. When using oil over butter, be sure to subtract 1/4 cup. So this recipe calls for 1/2 cup + 3 tablespoons of butter, use 1/2 cup of oil and omit the extra 3 tablespoons. Use dairy-free chocolate chips. I have successfully made this recipe gluten-free, as well as dairy-free. See notes if making dairy-free.