The Real Difference Between Blondies And Brownies

Most of us would be happy having either a brownie or a blondie for dessert (or both), and at first glance, they seem pretty much the same, aside from the obvious color difference. But you can't consider yourself a true brownie connoisseur unless you know exactly what the difference is between blondies and brownies. It's a little more than just cocoa powder too – while it's easy to spot a blondie sitting next to a brownie, there are other ingredient changes that make both desserts unique.

Known for being rich, fudgy, and delicious, the most important ingredient that distinguishes brownies from blondies is chocolate. According to Martha Stewart, a good brownie recipe usually has five primary ingredients with some room for variations: chocolate, flour, butter, eggs, and white granulated sugar. Of course, depending on what you like, you can toss in a handful of nuts or stir in a cup of chocolate chips, but those five ingredients play crucial roles in pretty much every brownie recipe, especially chocolate.

As Chowhound notes, you can change up how you incorporate chocolate into a brownie recipe, such as by using cocoa powder or melted chocolate, but no matter how you mix it in, you have to include chocolate in the batter in order to make it a brownie recipe. Delish also reports that brownies use less flour and more eggs than blondies. Eggs give them the fudgy texture that immediately comes to mind when you think of a good brownie.

In order to make a true blondie, you have to do more than just leave the chocolate out of a brownie recipe. According to Martha Stewart, brown butter is an important ingredient in most blondie recipes, and that's where the dessert's slight caramel and butterscotch flavors usually come from. And while most brownie recipes use granulated sugar, blondies almost always use brown sugar, which helps give them a chewier texture than most brownies.

Of course, there are still variations on almost every blondie recipe. According to Chowhound, you can use light or dark brown sugar, though dark brown sugar will give the blondies a stronger flavor and more moisture. However, the real key to making a blondie recipe is blending melted butter with brown sugar (no matter which kind you use).

Finally, like brownies, you can always add extras to blondies, but as Delish notes, since blondies don't have the same chocolate flavor as brownies, the possibilities for mix-ins are almost endless. You can use chocolate chips, candy, crushed cookies, peanut butter, or even potato chips. Whether you're a brownie-lover or team blondie, it's hard to go wrong with either one when your craving for something sweet kicks in.