Carrot Cake Blondies

My husband loves carrot cake and so one day I thought it would be fun to make these. It took me a while to get the recipe to where I want it, but I'm really happy with it now and everyone who tries them seems really happy also :). I enjoy making individual portions of food and I used an individual "brownie" pan the first time I made this to share with you all. I've also made them in that 1 1/2" silicone mini squares pan.

The one in the picture (below) is about 2 1/2" square. This recipe is pretty versatile in that you don't have to sprinkle it with nuts (sometimes I don't), or you can use candied nuts (sometimes I do). You can also of course add more or less spices to your liking. I don't use applesauce in this recipe but you may be able to sub some applesauce for the butter to make them a little healthier. Then you could say they're made with carrots and applesauce :), just forget about the other 1/4 lb of butter or so in the recipe, mmm...

Update (05/06/13): I recently made the Carrot Cake Blondies in an 8"x8" pan and have posted the directions below. There is a link to a printable version of them directly below the original printable version. You will notice that I halved the batter recipe but not the cream cheese topping recipe. In the 8"x8" pan the ratio works well instead of halving the topping too. I didn't have any walnuts when I made the updated version but as I said above feel free to toss some chopped walnuts on there before baking and it will give it a lovely crunch that will also complement the flavor of blondie. I prepared them in an 8"x8" pan to make the recipe more accessible to everyone, and so that anyone who wanted to make that size would know how long to bake them.

Carrot Cake Blondies
Makes 20 blondies

Ingredients:

- 1 cup butter, melted

- 2 cups brown sugar

- 1 cup granulated sugar

- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

- 4 whole eggs

- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

- 2 teaspoons cinnamon

- ½ teaspoon salt

- 2 med/large carrots, grated finely, about ¾-1 cup

- ½ cup walnuts

- 6 ounces cream cheese, softened

- 1 whole egg

- ⅓ cup sugar

- ½ teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2 Grease two 12-cup muffin pans. Combine the melted butter, sugars, and vanilla in a large bowl.

3. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each, until thoroughly blended.

4. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, and salt. Gradually stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until well blended. Stir in the carrots.

5. Divide evenly into each cup (I use a small metal scoop). Mix together cream cheese, egg, sugar, and vanilla.

6. Spoon about 1 ½ teaspoons of cream cheese mixture over each blondie.

7. Bake 18 minutes, sprinkle about 1 teaspoon of chopped walnuts evenly over each blondie. Bake an additional 7-9 minutes.  

8. Cool in pan 5 minutes then remove to cooling racks to cool completely.

Printable recipe 

Printable recipe for 8"x8" pan 
 

This recipe may be linked up to:

· Inside BruCrew Life - Time to Sparkle Tuesday's

· Pint Sized Baker - Marvelous Mondays 

· The Mandatory Mooch - Tasty Thursdays 

· Back For Seconds - Back For Seconds Social Link Party

· Real Housemoms - Fabulous Fridays! 

· Lemons For Lulu - Saturday Share with Us Link Party

· Kitchen Meets Girl - What's In Your Kitchen Wednesday

· DJ's Sugar Shack - Whatcha Whipped Up?

· Mom's Test Kitchen - Wonderful Food Wednesday's

· The Real Housewives of Riverton - Riverton Housewives Round Up

· Mandy's Recipe Box - Totally Tasty Tuesday's

· A Pinch of Joy - Busy Monday Link Party 

· House of Hepworth's - Hookin up with HoH 

· Couponing & Cooking - Mealtime Monday 

· What's Cooking, Love? - Showcase Your Talent Thursday 

· Bacon Time with the Hungry Hungry Hypo - Anything Goes Linky

· Chef in training - Tuesday Talent Show

· Dwell on Joy - Dwell on Friday 

· Six Sister's Stuff - Strut Your Stuff Saturday

· A Slice of Southern - Southern Sundays 

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