Brown Butter Gingerbread Blondies #recipe from Molly MacRae

 

Brown Butter Gingerbread Blondies

Adapted from Melissa Clark in The New York Times

Let’s warm our homes and ourselves by baking gingerbread blondies. I made these right before Christmas, about the only holiday baking I did, and we all thought we might never have tasted anything better. (They were so good that I forgot to take a picture of the cut bars.)

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter, plus more for buttering the pan

2 1/4 cups packed cup dark brown sugar

3 tablespoons molasses

1 1/2 tablespoons finely grated fresh ginger

3 large eggs

3 tablespoons whisky (or vanilla or espresso)

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

3 teaspoons ground ginger

1 1/2  teaspoon ground cinnamon

Generous teaspoon kosher salt

Generous 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

Generous 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Generous pinch of ground cloves

Generous cup chopped toasted walnuts or pecans (optional)

 

Directions

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-by-13-inch pan and line with parchment paper.

In a small saucepan, heat the butter over medium until melted and flecked with brown bit, 5 to 7 minutes, swirling or stirring occasionally. 

Pour browned butter into a large bowl. Add brown sugar, molasses, and grated ginger.

Add eggs and whisky (or vanilla), and whisk until smooth and glossy.

Add flour, baking powder, ground ginger, cinnamon, salt, allspice, black pepper, and cloves. Whisk well to combine. Stir in nuts if using.

Pour batter into prepared pan. 

Bake until edges are firm but the center is still slightly damp, 18 to 25 minutes. Do not overbake. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool. Let blondies cool completely in pan. Cut into bars when completely cool.

Coming in June 2025!

There’ll be Shell to Pay

Haunted Shell Shop book 2

When she’s not selling seashells by the North Carolina seashore from her shell shop, Maureen Nash is a crime-solving sleuth with a ghost pirate for a supernatural sidekick . . .

Maureen is still getting used to life on Ocracoke Island, learning how to play the “shell game” of her business—and ghost whispering with the spirit of Emrys Lloyd, the eighteenth-century Welsh pirate who haunts her shop, The Moon Shell. The spectral buccaneer has unburied a treasure hidden in the shop’s attic that turns out to be antique shell art stolen from Maureen’s late husband’s family years ago.

Victor “Shelly” Sullivan and his wife Lenrose visit the shop and specifically inquire about these rare items. Not only is it suspicious that this shell collector should arrive around the time Maureen found the art, but Emrys insists that Sullivan’s wife is an imposter because Lenrose is dead. A woman’s corpse the police have been unable to identify was discovered by the Fig Ladies, a group who formed an online fig appreciation society. They’re meeting on Ocracoke for the first time in person and count Lenrose among their number, so the woman can’t possibly be dead.

But Lenrose’s behavior doesn’t quite match the person the Fig Ladies interacted with online. Now, Maureen and Emrys—with assistance from the Fig Ladies—must prove the real Lenrose is dead and unmask her mysterious pretender before a desperate murderer strikes again . . .

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Instagram or Bluesky.