Battle of the Blondies

Yesterday I was very blessed to be joined by a dozen+ friends for a special Body Combat class.  As there is nothing I love more in life than the opportunity to grade something (“Red pen, please!”), I am applying to become a Body Combat assessor.   I love the idea of having some small part in a new instructor’s journey, sort of “paying it forward” for all the hours other people have spent helping me and giving me feedback these last three years.

As any Les Mills instructor knows, the final and most nerve-wracking step of becoming an instructor is submitting a DVD or videotape of yourself teaching a class.  This video is graded by an “assessor” and the instructor either gets a pass, path withheld or fail.

To become an assessor, one must submit ANOTHER taped class, plus a written self-assessment.  I have to grade myself. That should be interesting…

Even after three years of teaching, once that camera was on, I felt like I was teaching my very first class.  But with the help of my very fierce friends (some of whom broke out their new running shoes and Venum MMA shorts to bring me extra luck), I made it through the hour without too many screw ups.  After all, if it was perfect, I’d have nothing to “assess”!

To thank my friends for coming to the gym and supporting me – and on a perfect 80-degree spring day no less – I am baking some “thank you” gifts.  Most of the people who came to my taping were instructors who had already taught their own classes earlier in the day.  In short – they could use some extra calories!

This is where the Battle of the Blondies begins.

I didn’t intend for things to get so nasty.  I wasn’t spoiling for a fight!  This fight found me! Honest!

It started here with a captivating photo of blondies – rich, chewy bar cookies that are like brownies without the chocolate.  This particular food blog where I found the blondie recipe is wildly, insanely popular – and rightfully so by the looks of things.  Great writing, frequently laugh-out-loud funny.  Beautiful photos of food and even the occasional photo of the blogger’s very cute baby.  And the recipes!   There are hundreds!

I was set on these blondies.  Just a few ingredients, customizable in an infinite number of flavor combinations (dried cherries! white chocolate! bananas! espresso!) and 130+ comments declaring their awesomeness.  They HAD to be foolproof, right?

Wrong.  Imagine my pain and disappointment at the results of the Smitten Kitchen blondie recipe:

They weren’t BAD, they just weren’t…blondies.  They were more like chocolate chip cookies.  They were flat and tasted like sugar and butter.  Was it me?  Did I do something wrong?  I double- and triple-checked the Smitten Kitchen recipe.  NO.  I did everything as written!  I frantically began researching blondie recipes in trusted cookbooks and online sources like Epicurious.com.  The blog recipe appeared to be missing one crucial ingredient:

A leavening agent.  The ingredient that makes baked goods rise.  Every blondie recipe I found – and I read dozens – contained baking powder and/or baking soda.

Frustrated with this blog’s bad blondie recipe, I turned to the one person I have always relied on for perfection in the kitchen: Martha Stewart.  I decided on her Brown Butter Toffee Blondies.  The nutritional information (if you dare look) can be found here – but don’t be quite so alarmed by those calorie and fat stats.  That’s only if you cut the blondies into 12  HUGE pieces.  Her recipes says “yield: one dozen,”  but I got more than twice that.

These photos – Blondie vs. Blondie – speak for themselves:

For a taste test – the ultimate deciding factor in a contest of baked goods – I opted for a small center piece.  No edges for me, thanks.

Soft, dense and caramel-y.  THIS was a knockout blondie.   The browned butter was my favorite part.  It takes time, but it elevates these from standard bar cookie to something a little more fancy and grown up.   You don’t just polish it off.  You take one bite and stop breathing.  ”Hang on.  I need a minute.  Let me get out my favorite glass and poor some ice cold milk.”

(What?!  It just so happens that this 30-year-old’s favorite glass is plastic, has dinosaurs on it, and has glitter and floating shapes inside.)

But really people – you’ll want to sit down with a plate of these and share them with your loved ones – and you’d be proud to give them away as thank you gifts.

In this Battle of the Blondies, the winner is clear: Martha.  Bad blondies, you coulda been a contendah’, you coulda been somebody!  But you fell flat.

This just proves that there’s a reason Martha Stewart is Martha Stewart.  She is tried, tested, professional, trust-worthy.  She has built her reputation on perfection and I love her for it.

Now I wonder how she’d do in Body Combat, especially the “Excalibur” Muay Thai track from Body Combat 42.  I bet she’d win that battle, too.

***DISCLAIMER*** Through the miracle of the internet, I am sure that Smitten Kitchen and her many thousands of fans will find this post.  If any of you can explain to me how the blondie recipe works w/ no leavening agent, PLEASE let me know.  I am MORE than happy to be wrong.