Tahiti Blondies
Ingredients
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar (pushed through mesh or sieve to eliminate hard sugar clumps)
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
2/3 cup fresh or canned pineapple chunks (each piece cut into fours and drained)
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups sweetened coconut
1 cup of toasted & coarsely chopped macadamia nuts
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs, room temperature
You will first need to line a 9X13 inch cake pan with parchment paper covering the bottom and overlapping the 13 inch side. The overlap is so you can lift the baked bars out of the pan prior to cutting into squares. As you know leaving it in the pan makes cutting more difficult, especially the first piece. Also, your oven will need to be preheated to 350 degrees.
In a medium bowl, sift together baking powder, salt and flour until dispersed evenly and set aside. In a larger bowl you will cream the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer. Once butter mixture is smooth, you will add the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla, beating well after each addition.
Then use a wooden spoon to mix in the dry flour ingredients to the butter/sugar in the larger bowl. Then fold in the coconut, white chips, nuts and pineapple until evenly distributed. Note that over mixing will change the texture of the bars.
Spread batter into pan and bake about 25 min or until done. A toothpick test indicating with moist crumb will insure it is done baking. Be careful not to over bake. Place cake pan on cooling rack. Once cooled, lift out of pan by pulling up on parchment paper sides. Then you can cut into squares and serve.
With a twist: You can change this up by changing the fruit and nut types. Sweetened, dried cranberries are always good with white chocolate.
