Tahini Brown Butter Blondies

I love tahini so much, tahini in my brownies quickly became one of my signature bakes and I think I made about 50 of them in the last year alone for friends and colleagues. But during this quarantine, I’m taking the opportunity and luxury of time to try new and never before tested recipes.

I’m running out of dark chocolate, and not keen to go visit a store just for frivolous baking. So I checked my pantry and saw a bag of unused white chocolate chips that I had bought a few months ago to melt down for some Ottolenghi and Helen Goh oat cookies, and thought… why not blondies?

I have a backlog of Delicious UK magazines on my shelves (I continue to buy them when I pass by one because the articles are so well written, and the photos are stunning), and in one of them I recall was a recipe for tahini blondies, so I dug it up (September 2019) and propped it up and proceeded the bake what is now my favourite thing in the world to eat. FAVOURITE.

Tahini Brown Butter blondies

• 150g good-quality white chocolate chips
• 125g salted butter
• 100g light brown soft sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 130g tahini, plus extra to drizzle
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 85g plain flour
• 150g dark chocolate chips
• ½ tsp sea salt flakes

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/fan and prepare an 8x8inch square baking tin or dish
2. Melt the white chocolate chips in a bain marie and set aside to cool
3. Brown the butter in a saucepan (slowly swirl butter in the pan until the milk solids have caramelised and turned brown – but be very careful as it’s quick to burn)
4. Once butter has browned, pour into a large mixing bowl with the sugars and mix well. Leave it to cool slightly, around 10 minutes, then add the eggs and beat it well to combine
5. Add the tahini, melted white chocolate and vanilla bean paste and beat again to combine
6. Add the flour and stir to combine well, then similarly add in the dark chocolate chips
7. Pour the batter into your prepared baking dish/tin, top with sea salt flakes and bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted at an angle comes out clean.
8. The recipe says to let it cool, then chill overnight in the fridge. However, I ignored that bit and just cut into it once it was cool. I’m sure after chilling, the chewiness would have been even more enhanced, but it was still perfect without.