White Chocolate Blondies with Mango and Coconut

I spent the last couple of days at my aunt’s place for some sleepover fun. We’ve been doing this every so often since I was a child, and I’m so glad we’re still having these weekends now that I’m grown up (ha, “grown up”, that sounds weird). She’s one of my favourite people in the world and those weekends are always tons of fun. Most of the time we don’t even really do that much – we just walk through town, do some groceries, eat a lot of great food, watch a film or two and talk for hours.

This time, though, we both figured that it might be fun if we baked something together. So we started brainstorming, and I suggested we could bake blondies – white chocolate brownies. Then she said “I think mango would go really nice with that” and we also came up with the idea of adding some coconut, and voilà, a new recipe was born.

And let me tell you, these blondies turned out really good. They’re fluffy on the inside, with a subtle white chocolate and coconut taste and bursts of mango, and the crust is perfectly crisp as well. Funnily enough the taste of coconut only really comes through when the blondies have cooled down completely. Even then, though, it’s still quite subtle, so if you want more of a coconutty taste, I think adding 20 or 30 grams more dessicated coconut would do the trick.

You’ll need… (for 20-25 blondies)

• 100 g white chocolate
• 150 g butter
• 150 g light brown sugar
• 3 medium to large eggs (or 4 small ones)
• ½ teaspoon of vanilla flavouring
• 200 g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 175 g mango, chopped up into small pieces (either frozen or fresh – I used frozen, but let it defrost first)
• 55 g desiccated coconut
• a baking tin (I usually use a 20 x 24 one, this one was round, about 22 cm in diameter)
• and an oven, of course! These blondies need to be baked at 180 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

So, let’s get baking!

1. Melt butter and white chocolate Put the butter and the white chocolate together in a sauce pan and melt it over low heat on the stove while stirring.

2. Mix together butter/chocolate and sugar When the butter and white chocolate are melted, take the sauce pan off the stove and let it cool for a little bit (only 2 or 3 minutes). Put the sugar in a large bowl, and add the butter/chocolate mixture to it. Mix it together with a wooden spoon or a whisk.

3. Add eggs and vanilla flavouring Add the eggs to the mixture one by one and mix them through. Also add the vanilla flavouring and mix it all together until you’ve got a nice and smooth mixture.

4. Add flour and baking powder Now you have to add the flour and the baking powder. If either are particularly lumpy I recommend sieving it above the bowl (especially the baking powder), but if not – just throw it in and mix it through until the mixture is nice and smooth again.

5. Add mango and dessicated coconut If you use frozen mango, make sure the pieces are defrosted before adding them to the mixture, and don’t add the left over liquid. Also add the dessicated coconut, and mix it all through the batter.

6. Transfer to baking tin and bake! Transfer the batter to a baking tin, which you’ve greased and floured, and then put the tin into the oven and bake the blondie for about 35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Let the baked blondie cool inside of the tin for about 15 minutes before taking it out and cutting it into squares.

These blondies are really good when they’re still warm, but the different flavours come through a lot better when they’ve cooled down a bit. Either way, they’re delicious! Enjoy!