make blondies from “tweet cute” with me

recently, i read “tweet cute,” emma lord’s debut novel, and an obsession was born. it follows pepper and jack, two high school seniors in new york city as they battle on Twitter under their respective family restaurant’s handles, become friends in real life and start to fall for each other on an anonymous app. there’s a lot of mention of food in this novel, with some recipes emma lord has already put out into the world. but i noticed there wasn’t a recipe for “so sorry blondies,” so i decided to try it out myself.

“I pull [the blondies] out of the oven now, the smell wafting through the kitchen—the brown sugar and butter and toffee against the richness of the dark chocolate chips and pockets of dark chocolate caramel sauce. A little bitter and a little sweet.”

so, after a couple tries and some guidance from the author on twitter (thank you, emma!!), here is the recipe for “so sorry blondies”:

ingredients:

• 2 eggs, room temperature (let them sit for at least 15 minutes before starting)
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup (2 1.4 oz bars) chopped heath bars
• about 1/4 cup dark chocolate (regular is also very good) caramel for drizzling

process:

1. put on some good tunes and wash your hands!
2. preheat the oven to 350 F and grease a 13×9″ (glass) baking dish
3. mix the brown sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla until fully incorporated
4. combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl and then add to sugar/butter mixture slowly
5. stir in heath pieces and chocolate chips
6. pour mix into baking dish (it’ll seem very thin, but don’t worry!)
7. warm up caramel and drizzle over batter (go as crazy as you’d like)
8. bake for 19-21 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
9. try to restrain yourself for as long as possible while they cool and then enjoy!

NOTE: to make these gluten-free, just use whatever gluten-free flour you prefer (i use bob’s red mill all-purpose) and some xanthan gum to hold it all together (the flour normally recommends an amount). to make these egg-free, combine 1 tsp flaxseed meal and 2 1/2 tsp water and let sit for a few minutes for each egg you’re replacing.