Chocolate swirl blondies are going to become one of your favorite sweet treats! They're an equally delicious cousin to brownies, but these come with a chocolate swirl that takes them up a notch! Fancy looking but incredibly simple to make, they're another treat that shows that flourless and gluten-free can be fabulous!
Brownies are always a favorite.
But have you heard of blondies?
In case you haven't, they're basically the "blonde" version of brownies...and equally delicious treat but lighter in color.
Up until a few months ago, I had never heard of them or even knew they were a thing.
But now that I know, I'd say they're a pretty nifty variation to your usual chocolate brownies...
...especially when these ones are chocolate swirl blondies!
How Do You Make the Blondies?
The Chocolate Swirl
Since these are chocolate swirl blondies, you're going to need to melt some chocolate, and I just use chocolate chips.
While there are the traditional ways of melting chocolate using a double boiler or in the microwave, I've come up with a way that is easy, stress-free, and fuss-free.
All it involves is place a bowl of your chocolate chips over a measuring cup or similar vessel that contains just-boiled water. Let the heat from the steam do its magic and the chocolate chips will start to melt.
Stir the chocolate chips every minute or two and before you know it, you will have beautiful melted chocolate! Adding a small amount of oil to the chocolate chips and stirring it in will help make the melted chocolate drizzle or flow better later.
Whichever method you prefer to melt the chocolate chips, consider taking a look at my post on How To Melt Chocolate where I explain the process in more detail.
The Blondie Batter
I like to separate the ingredients into groups to simplify the recipe. The Dry Ingredients are made up of almond flour, baking powder, and salt. Simple, right?
Then there are the Wet Ingredients which include almond butter, an egg, maple syrup, oil, and vanila. Again, these are simple, straightforward items that you probably already have available.
Have your dry and wet ingredients each mixed and ready to go in their separate bowls. Then it as simple as combining the two groups of ingredients and whisking until you get a well-mixed batter. That's it!
You could use a mixer, but it will seem like overkill when you see how easily it all comes together using a hand whisk or a spoon. There's no need to complicate things!
If you want to add chopped nuts to your blondies, stir them into the batter after the wet and dry ingredients have already been mixed.
Transfer the batter to a parchment-lined square baking pan and then it's time for the fun part!
How To Make the Swirl
To make the swirls, I drizzle parallel lines of melted chocolate onto the blondie batter in the pan. The chocolate does not need to be precisely evenly divided among the lines, nor do the lines have to be evenly spaced, but I do find that making lines at each end and working towards the middle works well.
Now it's time to let your artistic side emerge! Grab a toothpick or knife and, starting at one corner, drag it across the chocolate lines, going back and forth across the pan until you reach the opposite side. You can choose to leave the swirls at that, or you can drag the toothpick across the chocolate diagonally from corner to corner, and then again from the other corner to corner.
OR go freestyle and drizzle the melted chocolate how ever you'd like onto the blondie batter and create random swirl patterns with your toothpick. There is no one right way to swirl!
Baking the Blondies
Just like brownies, do not overbake the blondies. Bake them in a preheated 350F/180C oven for 20 minutes and no more.
Let them cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then use the parchment paper to help transfer them to a rack to cool completely. This recipe makes 16 squares but cut them as small or as large as you like!
Variations
If you do not want to bother with melting the chocolate and creating the swirl, you can simply stir the chocolate chips into the blondie batter and bake. You can also top the brownies with chocolate chips before baking. This way you can still have the chocolate variable but don't have to go through the work if you don't want to.
You can also skip the chocolate completely, if desired.
If you like chopped nuts in your blondies, stir them into the batter before transferring them to the pan, or sprinkle them on top before baking.
How to Serve and Store
Serve a piece with ice cream of fresh whipped cream. Dust them with a layer of icing sugar and/or cocoa...or just grab one and take a bite!
Store them in a sealed container at room temperature for 2-3 days, in the fridge for 5-7 days. If you store them in the fridge, the chocolate swirl will harden slightly, which I happen to really like.
However, if you don't like the hard chocolate or eating the blondies cold, simple pull out as many pieces as you will be serving/eating and let them warm to room temperature for about 5-10 minutes. They also freeze well.
And that's it! If you are looking for brownie recipes, be sure to take a look at my Fabulously Fudgy Gluten-Free Chocolate Brownies or my Flourless Chocolate Chip Brownies. One can never have too many chocolate recipes...
So which do you prefer? A blondie? A brownie? Or both? 😉
~ Lisa.
Watch How To Make It!
Flourless Chocolate Swirl Blondies
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- 1 cup almond flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
Wet Ingredients:
- ⅔ cup almond butter
- 2 eggs
- 6 tablespoons maple syrup
- 3 tablespoons neutral-flavored oil (eg. canola, extra light olive oil, etc.)
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Chocolate Swirl:
- ½ cup chocolate chips
- ½ teaspoon neutral-flavored oil
Optional:
- ⅓ cup chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, etc.)
Instructions
- Preheat oven 350F/180C.
Melting the Chocolate:
- Pour boiling water into a bowl or measuring cup about ¾ full.
- In a bowl large enough to rest on the top of the measuring cup without touching the water, add the chocolate chips and let them melt.
- Stir the chocolate chips occasionally until chocolate is completely melted and smooth.
- Leave bowl of melted chocolate over the hot water while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Blondies:
- Combine almond flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and whisk together. Set aside.
- In mixing bowl, add almond butter, egg, maple syrup, oil, and vanilla. Beat with a whisk until well mixed.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet and whisk to combine.
- Stir chopped nuts into the blondie batter, if desired.
- Transfer blondie batter to a parchment-lined square baking pan and spread out evenly.
- Using a spoon or spatula, drizzle melted chocolate onto blondie batter in multiple parallel rows.
- Drag a toothpick in a perpendicular direction to the chocolate rows, creating swirls as you move the toothpick back and forth.
- Continue to drag the toothpick diagonally through the chocolate to create more swirls.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Let cool for 5 minutes. Use the parchment paper to help transfer the blondies to a rack to cool completely.
- Cut into squares.
Notes
- Adding a bit of oil to the chocolate chips will help make the melted chocolate easier to drizzle.
- If using chopped nuts, stir them into the batter before transferring to the baking pan.
- You can drizzle the melted chocolate over the blondies after they have already baked and cooled if you do not want to bake the chocolate.
- If you do not want to melt the chocolate to make swirls, simply stir the chocolate chips into the batter before transferring to the baking pan.
- OR top the batter with chocolate chips after transferring to the baking pan.
- Skip the chocolate chips completely, if desired.
- Store blondies at room temperature for 2-3 days, or 5-7 days in the fridge.
Nutrition
Hi, this looks delicious. Can I use bob mill's 1 to 1 gluten free flour
for this recipe?
I'm not sure if they will turn out the same, but I would definitely consider the 1:1 GF flour a viable substitution. Please let me know if you try it, and thanks for the question, Lisa!
Perfect swirl technique lady! This is right up my alley and I just grabbed a Costco-sized bag of almond flour on my last supply run. These are nice and fancy for the holidays! 🙂 I feel there will be a lot of baking going on and these blondies will be on repeat.
Thanks so much, Sharon! I hope you and your family enjoy them!
First of all, these are beautiful! I love both blondies and brownies. I bet there are amazing!
Thanks so much, Julia!
These look so good! Thanks for the tips to achieve the beautiful swirl effect. Super helpful!
Thanks, Vanessa!