Some of you may have noticed that my recipes are a haphazard combination of measures. Sometimes by weight in grams or ounces, equally often cups and milliliters and other volume measures. My problem is that I have moved all over the world collecting cookbooks (and recipes from friends!) so I have gotten quite comfortable mixing and matching. I own two sets of measuring cups, US and UK, where a cup varies from eight ounces in the former to nine ounces in the latter. I don’t actually own a separate set of measuring spoons, but I know that an Australian recipe calling for a tablespoon of something needs four teaspoons instead of the US three. Thank goodness all teaspoons are 5ml!
I have a wonderful set of vintage scales, a gift from my mother, procured by a dear friend in Aberdeen, which has both imperial and metric weights. This is my very favorite thing in my kitchen and until I bought a digital scale, and I used it all the time.
When using my US cookbooks, I often measure things out, then tip them in the digital scale and write the weight in pencil in the cookbook, so I can just weigh the item the next time I use the recipe. How we ever started using cups, I do not know, because weighing is so much easier - and more accurate!
If you too find yourself with a foreign recipe, online or in a cookbook, check out Traditional Oven, the website I often use for conversions. It has been a godsend! But whichever measure you use, you'll want to make my salted caramel pumpkin blondies.
Salted Caramel Pumpkin Blondies
To give everybody credit: My recipe was adapted from this recipe from BakedBree.com which was in turn adapted from this recipe from SingForYourSupperBlog.com which was in turn adapted from a recipe for basic pumpkin blondies from Annies Eats, who adapted hers from Martha Stewart. And so it goes.
Ingredients
2 cups or 250g plain flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated or ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (245g) room temperature butter
1 1/4 cups or 250g brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (Check out the link if you'd like to make your own.)
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin (not pie filling)
1 cup store-bought caramel syrup with 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt added or this lovely recipe. I made this myself and ended up with a much darker caramel sauce.
Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. Combine all dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
Cream together the butter and brown sugar until very light and fluffy in another bowl.
Add the egg and vanilla extract to the butter and sugar.
Now beat in the canned pumpkin.
Finally, fold in the reserved flour mixture a few spoons at a time, and stop stirring when the batter is just combined. This is going to be really thick.
Line a 9×9 baking pan with parchment paper and spread half the batter around evenly.
Bake in your preheated oven for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and pour the caramel sauce over the partially baked batter.
Carefully spoon the remaining batter over the caramel.
Spread to cover, as best you can. A gentle touch is key.
Return the blondies to the oven and bake for another 30 minutes. A toothpick should come out clean. Let the blondies cool before cutting.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar or drizzle on more salted caramel sauce before serving.
Enjoy!
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