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This Ham and Cheese Croissant Casserole takes the deliciousness of a ham and cheese croissant to create this easy croissant…
This Ham and Cheese Croissant Casserole takes the deliciousness of a ham and cheese croissant to create this easy croissant… This easy scalloped potatoes recipe makes the best potato side dish! Tender slices of potatoes in an easy, creamy sauce…
This easy scalloped potatoes recipe makes the best potato side dish! Tender slices of potatoes in an easy, creamy sauce… This Easy Fudge Recipe makes such rich, smooth chocolate fudge! Simple to make on the stove or in the microwave with four…
This Easy Fudge Recipe makes such rich, smooth chocolate fudge! Simple to make on the stove or in the microwave with four… Hashbrown Casserole Recipe is a cheesy potato casserole that is always a favorite! The ultimate easy, comforting side dish!
Hashbrown Casserole Recipe is a cheesy potato casserole that is always a favorite! The ultimate easy, comforting side dish! Hashbrown Casserole Recipe is a cheesy potato casserole that is always a favorite! The ultimate easy, comforting side dish!
Hashbrown Casserole Recipe is a cheesy potato casserole that is always a favorite! The ultimate easy, comforting side dish! Rich, sweet, and creamy Apple Dip is easy and delicious for parties and snacks! Ready in minutes from a few…
Rich, sweet, and creamy Apple Dip is easy and delicious for parties and snacks! Ready in minutes from a few… This easy apple turnover recipe is made with a cinnamon apple filling in a buttery, flakey puff pastry crust. They…
This easy apple turnover recipe is made with a cinnamon apple filling in a buttery, flakey puff pastry crust. They… This classic French Toast recipe is so delicious, easy to make and perfect for breakfast or brunch! Enjoy the BEST French toast in minutes with this recipe and helpful tips!
This classic French Toast recipe is so delicious, easy to make and perfect for breakfast or brunch! Enjoy the BEST French toast in minutes with this recipe and helpful tips! White chocolate brownies are like Blondies in disguise. You THINK they are just a less-cool, less-flavorful version of chocolate brownies, but oh are you wrong. They are basically Clark Kent with the glasses. Let’s see you take that shirt off Clark. Okay it got weird, just try these brownies, the white chocolate flavor is unreal!…
White chocolate brownies are like Blondies in disguise. You THINK they are just a less-cool, less-flavorful version of chocolate brownies, but oh are you wrong. They are basically Clark Kent with the glasses. Let’s see you take that shirt off Clark. Okay it got weird, just try these brownies, the white chocolate flavor is unreal! They are rich, fudgy, not at all cake-y, and taste exactly like true white chocolate because we are using the real stuff, no chips here 🙅♀️
Last weekend I was on the team in charge of throwing our church’s annual Trunk or Treat and Chili Cookoff, it was so much fun! I was running around like a crazy person checking carnival games, restocking utensils, and making sure there was enough hot apple cider for 150 people. Here I am last year as Weird Barbie, stirring my cauldron:
This year Eric and I dressed as The Swedish Chef and his Popcorn Shrimp. The kids are obsessed with The Swedish Chef (specifically that popcorn video) and when we surprised them with our costumes, they cheered as if we were celebrities for a solid 2 minutes. 😂 (Charlotte is Disgust from Inside Out, and Truman spent HOURS making his own homemade proton pack for his Ghostbusters costume!! I love how into it my kids are!)
More fun: October marks 13 years since I started this little blog! Sharing recipes here at The Food Charlatan has been one of the funnest parts of my life, truly!
I call the blog my 5th baby, because I like to love on it, just like a little baby (maintaining it takes up about the same time and attention as a fussy baby, too 😂) The blog, in it’s teen-hood, has grown into something that can sustain our family, and we are so grateful.
Eric and I run the blog together these days, and just like real parenthood, it makes us want to tear our hair out sometimes!! But it’s always worth it in the end. I just don’t think I’ll ever run out of recipes I want to share with you, the ideas never stop.
I can’t let another year pass without telling you how much your support of my blog and business means to me! A blog without a community is nothing, and I’m so grateful for all your comments, emails, photos, tags, etc., that let me know you are enjoying and using the content we work to hard to create. It makes me so incredibly happy to think that people all over the world (18 million so far this year) are making my own family’s beloved recipes. What an honor! Thank you for being here.
Every year, I bake myself a cake for my blog anniversary. (Or brownies, this year!) If you want to take a walk down memory lane, here is my first blog post, and all of my anniversary posts over the years:
These White Chocolate Brownies, you guys!!! I can’t even explain how good they are. I know what you are thinking: they can’t possibly be as good as a regular brownies. But oh boy, are you wrong.
They are a true brownie, with all the fudginess and texture you are looking for, but the taste is completely different. White chocolate and regular chocolate are just not the same! They have totally different flavor profiles.
I started out making Absolutely the Best Brownies I Have Ever Made, and just swapping the chocolate bar called for in the recipe with white chocolate. It was a bust. Browning the butter overwhelmed the flavor (white chocolate is delicate) and the texture was not right. They barely baked up properly. Several tests later, we have our winner.
We’re adding 12 ounces of white chocolate to a 9×9 square pan. It’s a LOT of chocolate, because I really wanted these brownies to bring the flavor, and white chocolate is pretty subtle. To compensate for all the extra chocolate, we are adding in a higher ratio of eggs, a bit more flour to make them hold together, and skipping browning the butter (the crowning technique of my favorite regular brownies) because browned butter overwhelms the white chocolate flavor.
We are even tossing the vanilla out of this recipe. (I know, WHAT?) We are so used to all white desserts being vanilla flavored, it just seems natural to add it in, and I did on my first 3 tests. But I realized eventually, after trying over and over to amp up that white chocolate flavor, that even gentle, subtle vanilla was overwhelming the white chocolate in this recipe.
So! Off with the vanilla and a 7 ingredient recipe becomes a 6 ingredient recipe. When you have a recipe with so few parts, you HAVE to make sure those parts are high quality. And that means: REAL white chocolate, my friends.
Not going to lie, these brownies are a bit of an investment. REAL white chocolate does not come cheap. But I swear, it’s worth it.
The only white chocolate I ever had growing up was in the form of white chocolate chips, or as a coating on cheap candy. I’ve never been a fan. It’s waxy and kinda bland tasting to me.
But a few years ago I was researching white chocolate for this Penuche Fudge recipe, and discovered that White Chocolate Chips are not made from white chocolate; it is mostly sugar and palm kernel oil. Whaaaaatt
The only way to know if you have REAL white chocolate is if Cocoa butter is listed in the ingredients. There is no grocery-store brand of white chocolate chips that has Cocoa butter in the ingredients (this is because real white chocolate is too delicate to hold its shape as a chocolate chip.)
I like to use chopped Ghirardelli Premium Baking White Chocolate for these brownies, Lindt or Guittard will do as well. The flavor, texture, and smoothness of the melted chocolate is absolutely incomparable to white baking chips.
NO. I mean fine, I guess you can. They will still be great brownies. But they will not have reached their full potential! White chocolate baking chips are made from sugar and palm kernel oil and other solidifiers that help them maintain the chip-shape. They do not melt well and are rather chalky. They are a cheap and sugary substitute for the real thing. A high quality bar of white chocolate that you chop yourself is going to be infinitely better. Save up your pennies, and join the real white chocolate lovers!
This is just a quick glance. Head down to the recipe card for all the recipe details!
You only need two bowls and a microwave for this recipe! It’s so easy. I mean, 6 ingredients, come on.
First up, add some sugar, salt, and eggs to a large bowl:
Use a hand mixer (or even just a whisk and some elbow grease) to beat the eggs and sugar together for about 2 minutes, until it looks light and fluffy, like this:
Meanwhile, add 2 bars of white chocolate and a stick of butter to another microwave safe bowl. Melt until allllllmost melted, not more. You don’t want to scorch it. White chocolate is delicate, be careful! I stopped when it looked like this:
Stir it until the white chocolate melts. Then scrape it into the bowl with the beaten eggs.
Now for the last ingredient: flour.
Do NOT over-mix your flour. This will make your brownies tough! Scrape the batter into the pan.
Then, chop up your last bar of chocolate and dump it on top of the batter. Gently fold it into the batter with a spatula. I like this method better than stirring the chopped chocolate directly into the batter (in the bowl) because white chocolate melts SO easily. If your batter is still warm at all, it could melt all your “chips.”
Then: the hour long bake time. Feels weird, I know. Regular brownies usually take about half the time! There is so much chocolate in this recipe (and so little flour, necessary for that FUDGY texture) that they need a long, lower bake time in order to set up.
And now: a waiting game. These brownies absolutely unequivocally must come to near-room temperature before cutting into them. Trust me. They will melt into a complete mess if you cut into them while warm. (You can chill in the fridge if you’re impatient.)
Once they have set up, you can reheat a single serving of brownies in the microwave if you want to eat it warm, no problem!
And voila! That’s it! Super easy.
Store these white chocolate brownies on the counter at room temperature! Just make sure they are in a container with an airtight lid or wrapped well in plastic wrap. They will last 3-5 days before they start getting stale.
Totally my friend! Just like most cookies and bars, they hold up really well in the freezer. The best way to do it is to cut whatever is left into squares, place them on a cookie sheet, and flash freeze for about 30 minutes. At that point, they should be frozen enough to handle (and not stick to each other), so you can place all the pieces in a freezer ziplock bag. The brownies will stay fresh in the freezer for about 2-3 months. To eat, set the bag out on the counter to thaw for an hour or two. You can also take one piece at a time for those surreptitious snacks when the kids aren’t looking! ;)
White chocolate comes from the same cocoa beans as regular chocolate but doesn’t have the same kind of processing. Specifically, it does not have cocoa solids, which are the dark portion of the cocoa bean. White chocolate is made with only cocoa butter (which is why it’s SUPER important to look at your ingredients before buying), sugar, and milk.
A typical pan of brownies has cocoa powder mixed in, as well as chocolate chips. These white brownies are a riff on that, leaving out the cocoa powder and replacing the semi-sweet chocolate chips in most versions with delicate white chocolate. A true brownie, just white!
A blondie is really similar! Typically, the base of the bar uses brown sugar and vanilla to create a butterscotch-y, caramel-y flavor. Even if chocolate chips are added, the flavor of the base balances out and holds its own with the chocolate – unlike brownies, where even if other things are added the chocolate (whether dark or white) is the main flavor.
I’m a sucker for bars. Just as tasty as cookies, but so much easier and faster to throw together. Check out some of my favorites!
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These Spinach Dip Bites are quick, easy appetizers perfect for game days, holidays, and more! Bake this delicious bite-sized treat…
These Spinach Dip Bites are quick, easy appetizers perfect for game days, holidays, and more! Bake this delicious bite-sized treat…