Talk about delightful—these soft and chewy brown butter chocolate chunk blondies have a layer of gooey nutella hidden inside.

One good thing stuffed inside another good thing: does it get any better? In this case you have a layer of molten hazelnut spread inside a chewy brown butter blondie, studded with chocolate chunks and crunchy hazelnuts.

Blondies are tricky little buggers. They seem simple, but so often they come out greasy and underdone despite ample baking times; in fact this result is so common that most people think blondies are supposed to be dense, gooey and almost cookie dough-like in the middle.

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some cookie dough, but that’s not quite what I was going for here.

Most blondie recipes call for you to stir the sugar into melted butter, then whisk in the eggs followed by the dry ingredients. Basically a chocolate-less version of your typical brownie, like my favorite espresso brownie recipe.

Unfortunately, this method often leads to greasy blondies with dry, crispy edges that seem undercooked even after baking for far longer than the recipe states. Not ideal.

With a bit of testing and lot of research (aka intense googling that ultimately led me to Stella Parks’ thoughts on the subject), it turns out the difference between undercooked, greasy blondies and perfectly chewy, cookie-like blondies is… air.

So instead of mixing the sugar into the butter and then adding the eggs, instead we beat the sugar and the eggs together first, until they are light in color and thick but not stiff. Then add the melted butter (browned butter, in this case) followed by the dry ingredients and the mix ins.

(more…)