White Chocolate, Cacao Nibs and Sour Cherries Blondies

I love making blondies. For me, they are just like big giant cookies without going through the trouble to roll each one out individually. Also, I can fool myself that I can enjoy bird-bite size each time. It's just that I am a serial bird-bite muncher...

I particularly like the combination of sour cherries and chocolate. This time I think I got the ratio right because the other discerning eater (finally) gave me the nod tonight!

White Chocolate, Cacao Nibs and Sour Cherries Blondies

- 1 large egg
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 100 g salted butter, room temperature
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup oat bran or old-fashioned rolled oat (can be replaced by 1/4 cup of flour)
- 50 g dried sour cherries (about 1/3 cup)
- 1/4 cup cacao nibs (or dark/milk chocolate chips)
- 50 g white chocolate, roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup chopped pecan nuts

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Beat the egg and brown sugar until well incorporated . Add in the softened butter and beat the mixture until light and fluffy.

Mix in all the rest ingredients with a hand-held mixer, except flour and pecan nuts.

Switch to a rubber spatula, fold in the flour and pecan nuts. Make sure there is no dry flour visible to the eye. If the mixture appears a bit dry, add a teaspoon of milk at a time.

Scrape the mixture to a lined square tin (20x20cm). Even the mixture in a tin with a rubber spatula. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the edges of the blondies start to get golden brown. Perform the toothpick test. If the toothpick comes out clean, it's ready.

Rest the blondies in the same pan for 20 minutes before cooling it on the rack.