I recently decided I was no longer paying a fortune to get my hair highlighted and I was at the point where my roots were getting nasty.  I’m pretty much a dark blond so I figured an overall color would whip me back into shape pretty easily.  I mean come on, how hard can be right?  So I headed to the grocery to buy a box kit.  I stood in the aisle for a long time picking out the prettiest model and trying to match my hair to the color on the printed picture of the box.  The shirt on model B24 (or something like that) was totally cuter so in the end the deciding factor was based on “If I find a shirt just like that I will look totally just like her!”  (you know – if I grow 6 inches and lose 25 pounds.)  I headed to the checkout, box in hand, ready to become the new me for $9.99.

Roughly an hour later I was blow drying my now orange hair wondering where exactly I had gone wrong.  I called Natalie to tell her about my little dilemma and all she said was “didn’t you already do this once in college?”.  Umm, well, yes, maybe… was all I could stammer out.  Lesson learned.  Again.

I promptly made an appointment with my wonderful stylist and she was very nice and tried not to giggle as I repeated my woeful tale.  Okay, I lied, I bought another box kit and tried to get the orange out and some how it turned out worse…  Natalie don’t say a word…

Then I called my wonderful stylist and she fixed me right up!  Back to my normal shade of “natural” blond.

So people, please learn from me and just pay the price.  It is so worth it!

In honor of my stupidity I decided to make blondies!  For those of you that don’t know what a blondie is it’s a brownie without the chocolate.  The blueberry icing is truly yummy and a great compliment to the blondies!

Blondies:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1 tsp salt

1 cup or two sticks of butter at room temperature

4 eggs

2 tsp almond extract

Combine the dry ingredients into the bowl of your mixer.  Slowly add the butter and the eggs until everything is creamed.  Lastly add the almond extract and blend the badder until smooth.  Pour it into a 9×13 baking dish at 350 for about 25-30 minutes.  Allow the blondies to cool and pour on the icing.

Blackberry Icing:

1 8 oz package of cream cheese

4 tbs softened butter

1 pound box of confectioners sugar

1 tsp almond extract

blackberry puree

Combine the cream cheese, butter, almond extract and blackberry puree into your mixer.  Mix until combined.  Slowly add in the confectioners sugar with your mixer on medium until your icing has reached the desired consistency.  The icing will be a bit runnier than traditional icing.  If you want it thicker than add less blackberry puree.  You can always add in more at the end if you think the icing needs it.  Don’t forget – this is not cake!  I like my icing to be more like a glaze on blondies as opposed to big thick icing because it makes me think I’m eating a little bite sized cake.  This makes a lot of icing!  I like a thin layer of icing and this makes a super thick layer so be ready to make two batches or just plan to spread it on everything for the next few days!  Either way it is fantastic!

Blackberry puree:

1/2 cup frozen blackberries

2 tbs granulated sugar

Heat a small sauce pan and place the frozen blackberries in the pan along with the sugar.  Stir and allow to cook until the sugar has dissolved and the blackberries have melted.  When a thick sauce begins to form pour the mixture into a small food professor.  Blend the mixture until it is the consistency of soft jelly.  Set aside.

Sometimes I double the blackberry puree and pour half of it into the badder and fold it in once or twice to get a beautiful swirl in the badder!

8 Responses to “Blueberry Blondies”