A blondie, also known as a blonde brownie or butterscotch brownie, is a
dessert bar originating in the United States. Rather than chocolate, blondies are based on
brown sugar
Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content or produced by t ...
and
vanilla
Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia'').
''Vanilla'' is not Autogamy, autogamous, so pollination ...
, making them light in color.
History
Originally, the term "brownie" did not refer exclusively to
chocolate brownies, but also included blondies.
There is not total agreement on when the first "brownie", generally speaking, was invented,
but the earliest known general brownie recipe to be recorded was by
Fannie Farmer
Fannie Merritt Farmer (23 March 1857 – 16 January 1915) was an American culinary expert whose '' Boston Cooking-School Cook Book'' became a widely used culinary text.
Education
Fannie Farmer was born on 23 March 1857 in Boston, Massachusetts, ...
in 1896,
based on
molasses
Molasses () is a viscous byproduct, principally obtained from the refining of sugarcane or sugar beet juice into sugar. Molasses varies in the amount of sugar, the method of extraction, and the age of the plant. Sugarcane molasses is usuall ...
.
Chocolate brownies became ubiquitous in the early 1900s, taking over the name, and by the mid-1900s molasses-based brownies were known as "blonde brownies", later shortened to "blondies".
See also
*
Chocolate brownie
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either by itself or to flavor other foods.
Cocoa beans are the processed seeds of the cacao tree ('' Theobroma cacao''); unprocessed, they ...
References
American cookies
Baked goods
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