These warm and gooey Gingerbread Blondies are a great dessert option instead of Christmas cookies. Made with brown butter, they're full of rich, nutty caramel flavor and are also decorated with fun and festive white chocolate designs!
Table of Contents
About these Blondies
Looking for a festive Christmas dessert that isn't a cookie? You need to try these warm and gooey Gingerbread Blondies. Topped with fun and festive white chocolate designs, they're perfect to make for family during the holidays or bring to your next party!
These blondies have just the right amount of gingerbread spice and will get you in the Christmas spirit in no time. The secret ingredient in these Gingerbread Blondies, however, is brown butter.
Taking the little bit of extra time to brown your butter will take this classic dessert up a notch by adding the richest nutty and caramelized flavor. And if you love these blondies you may also love these Cranberry White Chocolate Bars, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Blondies, these Apple Cinnamon Blondies or my Homemade Frosted Cookie Cake.
Recipe Ingredients
- Butter: We'll be browning our butter in this recipe to bring out some delicious nutty and caramel flavor.
- Sugar: This recipe requires both brown and white sugar.
- Flour: I used all purpose and have not tried any substitutes. I'm sure Gluten Free 1:1 baking flour would be fine if you're looking to make these gluten free.
- Gingerbread Seasoning: A classic holiday spice that gives these bars a festive feel.
- White Chocolate Chips: We'll melt this down and use it to decorate the blondies.
See the recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.
How to Make This Recipe
1. Begin by browning our butter. Heat a sauce pot to medium-heat and add butter. Stir consistently for 4-6 minutes or until the butter begins to bubble and thicken. NOTE: You do not want to burn the butter. I provide more tips for achieving the best brown butter below!
2. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a 8x8 baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Add the brown butter to a mixing bowl with brown and white sugar. Beat together.
4. Then, add an egg, egg whites, and vanilla extract. Mix.
5. Fold in all purpose flour, baking soda, salt, and gingerbread seasoning.
6. Pour blondie batter into your prepared baking dish and bake for 15 - 18 minutes or until the blondies have an even gold color.
7. Let the blondies cool to room temperature. You can pop them in the refrigerator if you need to accelerate the process.
8. While the blondies are baking / chilling, melt the white chocolate melting chips by placing them in a microwave safe bowl and heating in 30 second intervals. Stir between each interval.
9. Pour the white chocolate into a sandwich baggie and snip off one corner with a scissor. Use to make fun and festive shapes like Christmas trees or snowflakes on a piece of parchment paper. Let the chocolate shapes chill in the fridge or outside (up away from animals!), which will only take a few minutes.
10. Add the chocolate shapes on top of the blondies, slice and enjoy!
How to Brown Butter
Browning butter is the process of taking regular butter just past its melting point to toast the milk solids. Doing this brings out the nuttier, richer, and caramel flavors of butter and really takes this recipe up a notch! Here’s the details on how to do it:
- You’ll need a small saucepan and whisk or spoon. I suggest a stainless steel or lighter color pan so you can see when the butter begins to change in color.
- Heat your pan over medium-high heat. Cut your butter into slices and add it to the heated pan. It’s best to use unsalted butter for this.
- Allow your butter to melt, stirring frequently to keep milk solids from sticking to the bottom of your pan.
- After a couple of minutes, your butter should begin to foam and browned specks should appear. Watch your butter closely! It should turn from yellow to a golden brown.
- Once the butter becomes a deep golden brown, transfer to a heat-proof bowl. This will stop the cooking process.
Burnt butter, which will leave black bits on the bottom of your pan, will have a very bitter flavor. If this happens, unfortunately, you'll need to toss it and try again. If you are nervous about this process, I recommend following the same steps on a lower heat to slow down the cooking process.
Here’s a video on how to brown butter if you’re looking for a visual, too.
Note that some of the butter evaporates while it’s browning, so you end up with slightly less brown butter compared to the amount of butter you started with. A good rule of thumb is for every stick (8 tablespoons) of browned butter, you need an extra tablespoon of solid butter to make it. For this recipe, I used 10 tablespoons of solid butter (1¼ stick) and ended up with just just over 8 tablespoons, or 1 stick. So, if you do decide not to brown your butter, you’ll only need ~8.25 tablespoons.
Recipe FAQs
I like to store these in the refrigerator. When chilled, they have the best doughy texture! They'll stay good for up to 5 days in an airtight container.
You don’t HAVE to brown the butter, but I highly suggest it. It has a much bolder and richer flavor compared to regular butter. Plus, it only takes a few minutes!
This would be delicious! Not to mention, very beautiful with the white chips against the caramel color of your blondie.
If you aren’t a white chocolate fan, you can totally leave out the white chocolate topping. Instead, you could top with a dusting of powdered sugar or a cream cheese frosting.
More Recipes You'll Love
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟rating in the recipe card below & if you really like the recipe consider leaving a comment further down. Thanks for visiting!
Recipe
Gingerbread Blondies
Equipment
- Sauce pot
- Handheld mixer
- Mixing Bowl
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Rubber Spatula
- 8x8 baking dish
- parchment paper
- Small plastic baggie
- Scissor
Ingredients
Blondies
- 10 tbsp butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp egg white
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp Gingerbread spice
- 1 heaping tsp baking soda
- pinch salt
- 2 cups all purpose flour
Blondie Topping
- ½ cup white chocolate melting chips
Instructions
- Let's begin by browning our butter. Heat a sauce pot to medium-heat and add butter. Stir consistently for 4-6 minutes or until the butter begins to bubble and thicken. NOTE: You do not want to burn the butter. I provide more tips for achieving the best brown butter in the post above!
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a 8x8 baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Add the brown butter to a mixing bowl with brown and white sugar. Beat together.
- Then, add an egg, egg whites, and vanilla extract. Mix.
- Fold in all purpose flour, baking soda, salt, and gingerbread seasoning.
- Pour blondie batter into your prepared baking dish and bake for 15 - 18 minutes or until the blondies have an even gold color.
- Chill the blondies until they come to room temperature.
- While the blondies are baking / chilling, melt the white chocolate melting chips by placing them in a microwave safe bowl and microwaving in 30 second intervals, stirring between each interval.
- Pour the white chocolate into a sandwich baggie and snip off one corner with a scissor. Use to make fun and festive shapes like Christmas trees or snowflakes on a piece of parchment paper. Let your white chocolate shapes chill in the fridge or outside (up & away from animals!).
- Then, add the white chocolate decorations to the blondies.
- Slice and enjoy!
Nutrition
Video
Notes
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I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. It’s my passion to create dishes that can be shared with others. Tell me something you loved or just say hi!
Makenna Hornsby says
These blondies are absolutely insane. Such a good holiday dessert and pretty easy to make considering I had almost all of the ingredients already. I used powdered sugar instead of white chocolate on top and they were so delicious.
Lily says
These are incredible!! They are a perfect spin on the classic gingerbread cookie. My family beat enjoyed them chilled. Can’t wait for more cookie week recipes to try!
Natalie Gross says
SOO yummy!! Made them with oat flour as a substitute for my GF friend and still so delicious! These are a must-make for the holidays.
Danielle Jimenez says
We wanted to make these a little more macro friendly, so we substituted Stevia white and brown sugar. This cut about 40 calories from the macros. We also made the DIY gingerbread spice. They are so yummy! Perfect gingerbread flavor without being overpowering. They also have the perfect soft texture. We ate them a little warm and they are the perfect comfort snack to eat while cuddled on the couch watching your favorite Christmas movie with the family!
Makenna Hornsby says
So delicious! My photo doesn’t do them justice!
Katherine says
WOW WOW WOW!! These are insanely delicious!! I love gingerbread anything— these will definitely be on regular rotation!
Sydney Cruz says
I’m making 2 more batches of these to my cookie swap at work on Friday! Clearly I forgot to even take a picture because I was so excited to try them. They are “Christmas” in a cookie! LOVE them.
Brooke says
Truly don't have words for the perfect balance of sweet and gingerbread-spicy that these buttery blondies give. They're thick, chewy, and just quite perfect. Couldn't give a higher rating - made my own Gingerbread spice!! Yum Yum YUM!
Sydney says
Courtney has outdone herself with this one. The brown butter in this recipe CHANGES THE GAME. You may want to make a double batch right off the bat because these will not last long if you're sharing
Madison says
I was not expecting to like these as much as I did! It's such a creative recipe and was so easy to make. My batter turned into more of a dough but it still turned out amazing. These will definitely become a holiday staple in my house!
Lauren Nibberich says
Omg- these are AMAZING! I’m a sucker for ANYTHING gingerbread, but the texture of these blondies takes them to a whole new level. So decadent and soft. Will definitely be making again and again!
Alyssa says
These. Are. Incredible. The texture, the taste… everything about them are delicious. I literally had to put them in the fridge so I stopped eating them, they are addictive!
Elana says
these are absolutely delicious!! soft, gooey, and a perfect amount of gingerbread flavor. they were a huge hit with the fam. thanks, courtney!!
Katie White says
LOVE this recipe!! I made these gingerbread blondes for Christmas and they are amazing! I used cream cheese frosting instead of melted white chocolate and they were super easy to make. Will definitely be making these every year!
Carolyn says
Made them twice in 5 days! The entire family went nuts for these. I knew the minute I added the browned butter to the sugar these would be amazing! I followed the recipe exactly both times. Very quick to put together and delicious!
Katie says
I want to be buried in these blondies.
Lauren says
YES PLEASE. Made our own gingerbread spice & made these twice in a week. We found it was easier to put the icing right on the blondies as it stayed on better. But, we loved creating fun designs too. I love the crispy edge pieces best!!! These are dense and rich and festive and delicious!!!
Kenzie conley says
The perfect holiday treat! An incredible balance of gingerbread cookies that are easier to bite into 😉 a fan favorite! (It’s me, I’m the fan)
Courtney Paige says
These are INCREDIBLE! And so easy to make. Love the subtle gingerbread flavoring throughout. Brown butter is KEY!
Courtney Paige says
This is lovely to hear!! I love seeing your creation 🙂