Raspberry Blondies

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs
• 200g plain flour
• 200g light brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 175g unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 150g white chocolate, chopped
• 1 tbsp milk (for glaze)
• 75g icing sugar (for optional glaze)
• 150g raspberries
• 50g raspberry jam
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Method

1. Heat the oven to 170°C fan (190°C conventional). Line a 23cm square tin with baking paper, leaving an overhang on two sides so you can lift the blondies out cleanly later.
2. Whisk the melted butter and brown sugar in a large bowl for about a minute until smooth and glossy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla — the mixture should look thick and ribbony, falling in slow folds off the whisk.
3. Sift in the flour, baking powder and the quarter teaspoon of salt — don't skip it, that pinch of salt is what stops white chocolate blondies tasting one-note sweet. Fold through with a spatula until just combined and you no longer see flour streaks, then stir through the chopped white chocolate. Overmix now and you'll bake bricks.
4. Tip the raspberries and jam into a small saucepan with the lemon juice and warm over a medium hob for 2–3 minutes, crushing gently with a fork until saucy and jammy. The lemon juice keeps the colour vivid and stops the jam tasting cloying. Take off the heat.
5. Taste the batter on the tip of a spoon — it should read sweet but with a savoury backbone from the salt and brown butter notes. If it tastes flat, a tiny extra pinch of salt now will make the raspberry sing later.
6. Spoon half the batter into the tin and smooth roughly. Dollop over half the raspberry sauce, add the remaining batter, then spoon over the rest of the sauce. Drag a skewer through in figure-of-eights to ripple — you want bold streaks of red visible on top, not a uniform pink wash.
7. Bake for 28–30 minutes until the top is golden and set at the edges with a slight wobble in the middle, and a skewer in the centre comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it. They firm up dramatically as they cool, so pull them while they still look slightly underdone — push further and they go cakey.
8. Cool completely in the tin on a wire rack, at least an hour, before lifting out using the paper overhang. Warm blondies tear; cold blondies slice.
9. Whisk the icing sugar with the milk to a thick but pourable consistency — it should fall from the whisk in a slow ribbon that holds for a second before sinking. Drizzle in lazy lines across the slab and let it set for a few minutes.
10. Cut into 12 squares with a sharp knife, wiping the blade between cuts for clean edges. Plate the squares, scatter over the extra fresh raspberries, and finish with a light dusting of icing sugar just before serving.