#2,713: Loaded Blondies

It is not a secret in our house that I will do almost anything to get Matthew to snuggle with me.  So when he's avoiding bedtime, he will ask to lay in bed and watch food videos with me.  I know he's stalling, but I'll take that snuggle time even if it is as he's trying to pull one over on me!  When we were watching videos recently, we came across this recipe and he quickly declared that we HAD to make it for dad for Father's Day.  I had everything on hand except the M and M's so I figured adding one more ingredient to my grocery list wasn't a big deal.  Sadly, they were out of stock on the holiday ones so we just used regular plain ones instead.

As I took this picture Matthew kept asking "Am I a cook?"  Yes buddy, you sure are!  He was so proud to make these for his dad for Father's Day.  And his dad doesn't like pretzels in his cookies/bars, so his dad was a great sport for eating them anyways!  These look nothing like what the original post/video/recipe showed, but Matthew didn't care one bit!  These were made with love and are perfect just the way they are! 

1 ½ cup brown sugar

1 ½ sticks butter

1 ½ cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup M and Ms Red, White and Blue Milk Chocolate Candy (or regular plain ones if you can't find 4th of July themed ones)

⅓ cup pretzels, crushed

⅓ cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350℉/175℃.  

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan, allow to cool.

In another large mixing bowl, fold together cooled butter and brown sugar.

Add the vanilla and eggs, one at a time, and stir until fully incorporated.  Fold in the reserved flour mixture.  Fold in M and M's , chocolate chips, and pretzels, reserving ¼ of each for topping.

Pour batter into a lined 8x8 inch bake dish and sprinkle with reserved toppings.  Bake at 350℉ for 30-35 minutes until skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool before cutting into 36 pieces.  (If you cut these into 36 pieces they will be TINY!  I got about 16 pieces!!)