Gluten Free and KickA** Good Butterscotch Blondies !

Who would think that a winner gluten free flour mix of garbanzo bean flour and Bisquick's new gluten free biscuit mix could make for the dry ingredient base for these Blondies ???? I know I am just as pleasantly surprised as I could possibly be! What on Earth made me think to alter Debbie Fields' Blondie recipe this way ? Well, that's easy. I needed to make a sweet dessert for a dinner party group who have gluten issues (like yours truly) and I have been sick to death of the grittiness of conventional rice flour mixes. So, I started branching out by buying and experimenting with GF oat flour, corn flour that has a super fine grind, and garbanzo bean flour.  

I won't lie. I tasted the batter as I was putting this batch of cookie bars in the oven and was really put off. Before it is baked the batter has a strange beanie flavour aftertaste that seems almost metallic to me. YUCK! However, knoshing on a warm blondie as I was cutting them, I marveled that there was no more beanie metallic yuck! Miraculous! Warm, chewy butterscotch cookie bar, heavy on the brown sugar with a really moist crumble ... truly miraculous!

So ... here you go all you GF freaks out there! This is my gift to you! Now, someone with far more gluten free experience has probably already thought this combo up, but if they have, I don't know about it and I'm thinking that I have had an epiphany! I'm just so glad to have taken a bite into a warm sweet treat and not thought,"Damn, it's gritty!"

Caramel blondie sundaes comin' right up! Hot damn! 

PS ---- Here are my other weekend projects. paperwhite narcissi thrown in the soil and making a go of it ... and more scrappy hotpads for the table ... keep busy this weekend, folks!

Gluten Free Butterscotch Blondies

Ingredients:

¾ c. (1 ½ sticks) butter, softened

2 ¼ c. light brown sugar, firmly packed

3 eggs, room temperature

1 ½ tsp. good quality vanilla extract

1 ⅓ c. GF Bisquick mix

1 ⅓ c. garbanzo bean flour

1 tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. Xanthan gum

¼  tsp. salt

¼ c. cool water

12 oz. bag butterscotch morsels

½ c. chopped pecans (optional)

Making the Blondies:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F and line a 13 x 9 inch baking pan with parchment paper.
2. Beat the butter and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl, just until smooth with few little lumps.
3. Add the eggs and continue beating until incorporated.
4. Add the vanilla extract and beat that  in.
5. In a separate bowl, measure the flour, Bisquick mix, xanthan gum, baking soda, and salt. Whisk everything well to completely blend the flours.
6. Add all at one to the wet ingredients and stir together with a spatula. Batter will be really thick.
7. Add the water and stir to loosen up the batter – but don’t overmix.
8. Fold in the butterscotch morsels.
9. Plop globs of the blondie batter into the pan, and secure the paper with one hand while you smush the batter all around the pan and up to the lined edges.
10. Bake in the center of the oven for about 35 – 45 minutes. Use a cake tester and when it comes almost clean … there will be a sugar coating and just a tiny crumb or two clinging to it … pull the blondies out of the oven.
11. Place a cooling rack on the counter and when the blondies have rested for five minutes, use the paper to lift the whole batch out of the pan and onto the cooling rack.
12. When almost completely cooled, lay the blondies on a level counter and use a very long knife to cut the blondies into squares.
13. They should be chewy and moist … really good with vanilla ice cream and a dollop of whipped cream!

NOTE: The batter tastes weird … uncooked garbanzo flour leaves a strange aftertaste, which disappears once the baking process works its magic. Trust me!