These amazing blondies are packed with the flavor of white chocolate, caramel, and banana, and are exactly as good as they sound!
Every time I get a new cookbook, the first thing I do is go through the recipe index entirely and mark the recipes with my favorite ingredients: bananas, hazelnuts, chocolate, caramel, and peanut butter. So when I saw this recipe on Dan Lepard’s book Short and Sweet, which had ALL those ingredients (except peanut butter), it took me 5 minutes to get to the kitchen and start baking.
One bite and I fell in love. These are probably the most delicious blondies I’ve ever eaten. They are on the sweet side, so they’re mostly for those with an active sweet tooth, but still every single person who tried them said they were amazing.
Caramel
One thing that’s worth mentioning is that the recipe starts with caramelizing nuts. You can read my caramel guide here, or if you haven’t made caramel before and want to skip that part that’s perfectly fine too. You can use store-bought candied nuts or just use regular nuts instead. If you don’t like desserts that are too sweet, the latter might be a better option for you anyway.
- 1/3 cup (70 g/2.5 oz) granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons water
- ½ cup hazelnuts
- 200 g/7 oz white chocolate
- ½ cup (113 g/4 oz) unsalted butter
- 1 cup (200 g/7 oz) granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 bananas , peeled and chopped into small pieces
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups (200 g/7 oz) all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
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Note: If you prefer to not make your own caramel, skip to the next step of making the brownies. You can add ½ cup chopped candied or regular nuts into the batter instead.
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Make the caramelized nuts: In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan heat sugar and water over medium heat. Let the mixture bubble away until the sugar turns into reddish, golden caramel and reaches 250F/120C. Swirl and shake the pan occasionally (but not too much as this encourages clumping) to cook evenly and prevent the caramel at the edges from burning. Stir in the nuts, and immediately spread onto a tray lined with parchment paper. Allow to cool, then chop finely.
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Make the blondies: Line the base and sides of an 8-inch/20cm square pan with foil and preheat the oven to 375F/190C. In a medium heat-proof bowl, place white chocolate and butter. Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir occasionally until chocolate and butter have melted. Transfer mixture to a large bowl. Add sugar and mix to combine. Add egg, bananas, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Sift flour and baking powder, then fold just until combined. Fold in chopped nuts. Spoon into pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, until wobbly-set and golden on top. Allow to cool completely before slicing.
Recipe is adapted from Dan Lepard’s book Short and Sweet. Note that I did make some adaptions to the source recipe.
10 Comments
Amanda @ Cookie Named Desire
July 11, 2016 at 6:19 pmThis sounds amazing! I definitely need to try it!
Thalia @ butter and brioche
July 12, 2016 at 1:06 amoh my gosh! banana blondies! i have to try these – blondies and brownies are my favourite thing to bake Xx
Claudia | The Brick Kitchen
July 14, 2016 at 6:36 amThese sound incredible! I love banana bread and blondies, and can just imagine how good it would be all together. Lovely photos too! 🙂
Shiran
July 17, 2016 at 4:12 amIt’s a heavenly combination! Thank you so much, Claudia 🙂
Amy
June 28, 2017 at 1:36 amHi Shiran! Thank you for your beautiful blog 🙂 I have just stumbled upon it recently and love your recipes. Quick question about this one – do you think I could use white candy melts instead of white chocolate?
I can’t remember if I have subbed it in recipes before… I feel like I have and it didn’t go well, but I could totally have just imagined that!
Shiran
June 28, 2017 at 6:38 amThank you so much Amy! 🙂 Candy melts won’t work well in this recipe, so just stick with white chocolate.
Niti Pagdi
December 22, 2018 at 5:09 amThank you! Bananas and white chocolate / what a lovely combo. Love the recipe, I made it this morning. Dubbed the hazelnuts with cashews because I wanted a little more chewy texture which was great to bite into. However, it turned out so sweet, with the praline and banana and all that sugar and the white chocolate. What could be a good accompaniment that would add a fresh taste and cut that sugar?
Also, at 190 C it baked in 20 mins, not 30. Got a darker crust than I’d like. But will try it again next time.
Farhana
September 5, 2019 at 5:22 pmHello,
There’s no mention of the butter in the recipe, when should it be added?
Jessica
September 22, 2022 at 11:35 pmMade these for my husband’s contract work dessert with his two offsiders and it was delicious! I added a pinch of salt to cut through the sweetness, and if I was to make it again, I’d double the amount of candied hazelnuts to add on decoration as well as having enough to stir through the batter. Will be making this recipe again when there’s two bananas in the fruit bowl that are past their best! I agree with Niti’s comment about the blondie having a darker crust than optimal at 190C for 30 minutes, next time I might cut the cooking time by five minutes. Thank you, from Western Australia.
Talia @ Pretty. Simple. Sweet.
September 25, 2022 at 7:48 amHi Jessica, I’m So glad you tried these out and liked them! I love hearing your feed back 🙂