Brown Butter Apple Blondies

These soft and chewy brown butter apple blondies combine cinnamon-spiced apples, brown sugar, and flavorful brown butter. We’ll top them with brown butter icing, a reader favorite icing that I also use for peach Bundt cake and pistachio cookies. If you love apple desserts like I do, these are a must-make!

Alternate title for this recipe: Butter

Let’s celebrate apples with immensely buttery blondies. We’re using 2 sticks of butter in these brown butter apple blondies and we definitely shouldn’t think twice about it!! The good news is that this recipe makes a large 9×13 inch pan, so there’s plenty to share.

But the bad news is… you have to share them.

These Brown Butter Apple Blondies Are:

• Cinnamon-spiced
• Soft and sweet
• Chewy, not cakey
• Flavored with brown sugar and brown butter
• Bursting with apples
• Totally not diet food. Oh well!

How to Make Brown Butter Apple Blondies

Listen up because there’s a few steps to conquer before we take that first bite.

1. Brown the butter first. We’ll use brown butter in the blondies and in the icing. Pour the browned butter into a heat-proof bowl, then return the pan to the stove. No need to clean the pan because we’re using it in the next step.
2. Peel, chop, and gently cook the apples. You *could* stir the apples right into the blondie batter, but the apples taste much better if they’re slightly softened first. Cook the chopped apples on the stove for only 3-5 minutes. We’ll cook them with a little maple syrup (or brown sugar) and cinnamon. IT’S ALL SO GOOD!
3. Make the blondie batter. There’s no electric mixer required for this recipe! Whisk some of the brown butter with brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and the apples, then spread into a 9×13 inch pan.
4. Bake until lightly browned on top. The blondies take about 35 minutes.
5. As the blondies cool, prepare the icing. Mix the remaining brown butter with confectioners’ sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt.

Here are the gently cooked apples and the blondie batter:

Success Tip: Lining the pan with parchment paper makes it much easier to remove the apple blondies before slicing and serving. I use the same tip when making rice krispie treats and M&M cookie bars, too.

Best Apples for Brown Butter Apple Blondies

You can use your favorite variety of apples. I prefer tart Granny Smith apples because the blondies are pretty sweet. For a complete list of my favorite apple varieties, with a description of each, you can visit my post The Best Apples for Baking.

The Magic of Brown Butter

Let’s talk about brown butter. I actually created a landing page for all things brown butter including the quick process, success tips, and a video tutorial. Brown butter is a one ingredient wonder and vasty improves the flavor in any dish where it’s used, including these blondies. (By the way, I highly recommend browning butter for butterscotch blondies too!) Brown butter by gently cooking and stirring it on the stove until its milk solids toast and it has a nutty aroma. This takes anywhere between 5-8 minutes, so it’s a pretty quick step.

And well worth every single second. In less than 10 minutes, you’ll have liquid gold:

How to Brown Butter Video Tutorial

Brown Butter Icing

The blondies don’t *need* icing, just like we don’t *need* to binge watch Netflix on a Sunday night. But we want it, so we’ll do it.

This is the same brown butter icing we use for pistachio cookies, skillet cornmeal cake, pecan sugar cookies, and brown butter pumpkin oatmeal cookies. It’s remarkable and readers have been raving about it on my peach Bundt cake. Try it on scones and cinnamon rolls too. (You won’t regret this icing, unlike the 4 hours of Netflix binge watching.)

More Apple Treats

• Classic Apple Pie
• Homemade Apple Cider
• Apple Cinnamon Bread
• Apple Cinnamon Rolls
• Caramel Apple Scones
• Apple Hand Pies
• Apple Bundt Cake
• Fresh Apple Cake

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