Touchdown Almond Butter Blondies (Gluten-Free and Vegan!)

These amazingly vegan and gluten-free almond butter blondies will score big points with your home team. This is a guest post by the amazing River of Wing it Vegan. River blogs loads of “vegan grub, craftiness, and geekery.” Seriously, she really does. Her plant-based blog is whimsical, fun (especially around the holidays!, and full of deliciousness.

Are you Team-Brownie or Team-Blondie? It’s a tough choice! While I love chocolate just as much as every other choco-holic, I might have to side with Team-Blondie, especially if they are made with a rich nut butter.

Team-Brownie fans will love my recipe for vegan Eureka Brownies, but the decadent recipe that follows may just cause you to question your loyalties. These almond butter blondies are dense and fudgy with bits of chewy almond paste and soft chocolate chips. You can replace the almond butter with peanut butter for a more classic flavor combo, though you might want to skip the almond extract and almond paste if you do that.

This recipe is adapted from my wheat-based blondies, and it’s the result of many test batches and many gluten-free flour combinations. The almond butter works as a natural binder, which means there is no need to add any xanthan gum. Enjoy! …

Special Diet Notes: Almond Butter Blondies

By ingredients, this recipe is dairy-free / non-dairy, egg-free, gluten-free, peanut-free, soy-free, vegan / plant-based, and vegetarian.

Flour / Starch Options: If sorghum flour isn’t one that you keep on hand, you can swap in brown rice flour or millet flour. If you are okay with gluten, you can actually swap in a wheat flour (all-purpose, white-wheat, or even light spelt). If tapioca starch isn’t stocked in your pantry, feel free to swap in another starch, such as non-GMO cornstarch or arrowroot starch. No almond flour around? Simply grind some almonds in a spice grinder or food processor to create a meal … don’t grind to long or you may create almond butter! These substitutes may produce slight variations in your almond butter blondies from the original, but should still work out well.

Almond Butter Blondies

 

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

35 mins

 

Recipe and photos by River of Wing it Vegan

Author: River of Wing it Vegan

Serves: 9 to 12 blondies

Ingredients

• ¾ cup sugar
• ¼ cup grapeseed, rice bran or other neutral-tasting oil for baking
• ½ cup almond butter
• ⅓ cup plain dairy-free almond or rice milk beverage, plus additional as needed
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• 2 tablespoons golden flax seeds, ground
• ¾ cup sorghum flour(see note in post above for options)
• ¼ cup almond flour
• 2 tablespoons tapioca starch
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup dairy-free semi-sweet chocolate or carob chips
• 2 tablespoons chunks of almond paste (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF and grease an 8x8-inch metal baking pan.
2. Use a blender or food processor to grind the sugar into a powder. Grinding the sugar is what will give the blondies that lovely crusty top. Add the oil, almond butter, milk beverage, extracts, ground flax seeds, and blend or process until smooth.
3. Combine the sorghum flour, almond flour, tapioca starch, baking powder, and salt in a mixing sized bowl.
4. Pour the almond butter mixture on top of the dry ingredients. Using a hand blender, beat on high until a smooth dough forms. If the batter is crumbly or too hard, add a tablespoon of milk beverage. The batter should be fairly thick but just thin enough to pour out of the bowl.
5. Stir in the chocolate or carob chips and the almond paste chunks, if using.
6. Pour the blondie batter into the prepared baking pan and bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the blondies comes out with a few moist crumbs. Take care not to over bake them or they will be too crumbly.
7. Let the almond butter blondies cool completely before cutting them into squares.

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